Red vs Blue Season 14
by Monty Mason
Summary: The Chorus fight is finally over, but at a huge cost. Now the Blood Gulch crew must finally return home, but can they ever find a way to move on from the losses they incurred? Maybe they won't have much of a choice in the matter as a new threat looms over the horizon. - Not an adaption of the official season, more details inside. Rated M for language -
1. Prologue

**A/N:** While I have titled this fanfiction as Season 14, I am aware that there is already a season 14 for Red vs. Blue with various episodes in production and some out from Rooster Teeth. I simply titled it as such since I believe doing mini-stories should have been more of a spin-off than an actual season.

Considering the emotional ending and that horrendous cliff-hanger from Season 13, season 14 should have been a continuation of the story. Them having mini-stories as season 14 after the bombastic season 13 really tends to break the immersion factor for me.

Therefore thanks to the beauty of fanfictions, I can go ahead and make my own story for maybe at least two seasons to satisfy that thirst, until Rooster Teeth comes out with the official continuation anyways.

As for the writing the characters, I have done my best to remain in character as much as possible (at least my understanding of these characters). Also, there won't be much in the way of author's note from now on unless there is something specific and vocal that requires attention.

Upload schedule is basically I upload on a chapter completion basis. When a chapter is completed, I will upload it.

The characters, the copyrights, and the trademarks behind "red vs. blue" belong to its respective owners, namely Rooster Teeth. I only came up with the storyline in which I chucked these characters and locations into.

* * *

 **Prologue**

As the Blood Gulch crew all stood united faced with an imminent threat separated only by two metal doors, they all firmly pointed their weapons towards it. Tucker activated his alien sword with his A.I. companion beside him. "Hey, uh, I just want you guys to know that, out of everyone I have ever met… I hate you all the least."

The blue armored soldier smirked at his friend's words and his lack of ability to honestly express his words. "See you on the other side, Church."

Just as the enemy soldiers began to solder off the second door, time seemed to slow down around them all down to a millisecond. Church threw away his sniper rifle as it disintegrated into thin air and turned around facing them all with a sigh. "Not this time, buddy."

Delta pixilated behind Church concerned at his decision. "Are you…sure about this?"

"I'm sure…start a recording for me D."

"Recording," said Delta as he vanished running the appropriate subroutines. Church turned back to the crew. "Hey guys... if you're hearing this then it means you did it. You won. You kicked the shit out of Hargrove's forces. I knew you could. But this is my last stop…"

The doors burst open and flew to the two sides of the room. The AIs quickly got to work on activating the shield in Meta's armor. It easily deflected all bullets back to the shooters. Many sustained bullet wounds and lay on the floor crying in pain. As the shield died down, the Blood Gulch crew opened fire on any of the remaining forces in their sights.

Mowing down as many as they could with their shots, Tucker activated the speed unit with Eta and Iota's aid. Rushing past the two remaining soldiers he pushed past one causing the soldier to fly off hard into the wall. The other was on the unfortunate end of Tucker's alien sword. "Stab!"

All enemy soldiers were down. Tucker admired their handy work and studied the armor in awe.

"Oh man I really could get used to this! Check it out, aren't I a badass?" he asked striking a pose meant to show off his muscles outlined by the armor. Grif simply let out a groan of annoyance. "Yeah! Yeah! Very flashy, now let's get a move on! We still got Hargrove to take care of!"

"Good point, but how do we get to him?" asked Simmons looking around for a way out. The blast doors F.I.L.I.S.S. lowered before were now partially broken with a hole through them all. Donut walked through the hole. "Come on guys, lets' go get our man! No matter how deep the hole, double O Donut always finds his man!"

"Right…," Sarge replied uncomfortably before running past his subordinate. Tucker followed the group, but noticed a severe headache coming on. An audible groan of displeasure escaped him. Doc looked back asking. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing…just a headache. Although Church seems to be awfully quiet."

"Maybe running the suit took too much effort and he just needs to rest," Simmons theorized.

* * *

 _Maybe_ , pondered Tucker as they continued to fight all the way up to the deck. Finally they came face to face with the mastermind behind the Chorus tragedy. Sarge raised his shotgun at the defenceless, stone faced old man. "Freeze scumbag!"

The chairman simply raised his arms with an amused smile. "Do you simulation troopers really think you can make a difference by placing me under arrest? It is only a matter of time before this ship falls down and takes all of us down with it."

"Uh…what he say?" Grif asked with a worrisome tone. The chairman's face brightened with an air of superiority. "Oh did I not tell you before that I have this ship on a timer to cease operating and descend to its destruction? Well by my calculations that time should soon be coming to a close."

"[OH SHIT]," said Lopez with Simmons and Doc quickly scrambling to the main control panel. Donut approaches the chairman and tells him to stick his hands behind his back. "Good thing I retrieved those special handcuffs from the mercenary before, they sure do come in handy."

"Oh no!" shouted Simmons getting everyone's attention.

"What? What is it?" Sarge rushed over to Simmons' position. Simmons continued to fiddle with the controls but it was increasingly apparent that there was nothing that could be done. Just as the crew was about to break down into an all sense of hopelessness, they saw their rescue ship approaching.

"Aw score!" shouted Grif making his way for the exit. Caboose looked over at Grif asking curiously. "What did you score in? No one told me we were playing games, I want to play games!"

"Come on men, move! Double time it!" ordered Sarge with the whole crew retreating down to the shuttle deck with their prisoner in hand. As the ship landed, Tucker quickly rushed towards Carolina explaining the situation. "Order the soldiers out of the area!"

"Why?" asked Kimball over the radio. Carolina looked at the others who were trying to catch their breath. Grif looked towards her breathing hard. "Let's just say that Chorus is going to be getting a big unwelcomed surprise soon in the form of a spaceship falling on top of it."

"Oh no," Kimball whispered quickly making an announcement for retreat. She hoped that many would be able to get out. Washington and Carolina helped the crew aboard, while Washington also made sure to keep a close eye on Hargrove. Just as their ship took off, the spaceship began to descend to its demise. Hargrove looked at the ship as it exploded upon contact leaving a huge scar on the planet. He closed shut his eyes in defeat. _So many years of careful manipulation and planning, all of it undone so easily. Now I sit here in handcuffs with nothing to show for my actions, no longer does a reason exist for me to continue fighting_.

Lopez held out a data disk to Washington.

"What's this?" the ex-Freelancer took the disk and inserted it into a portable device scanner. Upon quick examination, it was a copy of F.I.L.I.S.S., or better known as Sheila to the crew. Carolina stared at the huge explosion and tightened her grip on the bars. "Everyone brace for post explosion wave!"


	2. Worn Warriors

**Red vs. Blue: Season 14**

 **Chapter 1: Worn Warriors**

Kimball walked around one of their camps studying the weary troops. She looked at the cars parked in a mess in their hanger bay, just begging for maintenance. _I will have to get Jenson on that_ , she pondered hearing the sounds of a few beginning to celebrate now. _But I suppose that can wait_. She walked out of the hanger bay and to an open field where the soldiers lit a fire, began drinking and dancing in joy. Their war was finally over.

A curious sense of happiness overtook her. This day, she had imagined it multiple times every morning she awoke to lead the troops. But now it was finally here. This was the day they could finally put down their guns, strip themselves of their armor and start to rebuild. Chorus could finally begin to feel the sense of peace that had been absent all these years.

The skies crackled and she looked up alongside others. It was the rescue ship; everyone broke out into a loud cheer. Carolina smirked to herself watching the soldiers gather. "Get your stuff, we will be landing soon."

"Oh finally, maybe I will be allowed second helpings of steak finally after taking down one of the biggest threat to Chorus," Grif pondered ecstatically. Simmons shook his head. "You are still thinking about food? The fight is over Grif, this means we can finally try to go home!"

"You got that right Simmons. I can only wonder what Blood Gulch is like now," Sarge commented mounting his shotgun behind him. Doc and Donut both gleamed with excitement. "Maybe we can start an all natural garden again."

"Whatever, just this time, no radiated engines," Grif scoffed still having to clean out stray hair pieces from his helmet everytime he takes it off. The whole gang could hear Simmons sob at his failed attempts at farming. The crew felt a light bump and looked out the windows, they have finally landed. Washington approached Hargrove. "Get up."

The doors opened and they were greeted by the loud cheers of the soldiers. Kimball approached the exiting crew with a relieved tone. "I'm so glad to see you all making it out of there safe and sound."

"And we brought back a little present," said Washington leading Hargrove out of the ship. "Where are the holding cells?"

Kimball was left speechless at the man that stood before her. This man that escalated the Chorus tragedy up to the death count it has today had a lot to pay for. Kimball asked for Washington to follow her. Carolina peeked to her left seeing Tucker silently watching the prisoner being taken away. "You have been awfully quiet."

"Ugh, it's nothing really," he replied holding his head. "Just a massive headache, and no it's not the kind you get after a pretty bad hangover."

"I'm sure it will subside, probably just from Epsilon overdoing it while running the suit. Although I'm surprised you agreed to wear Maine's armor."

"Maine?"

"I mean the Meta."

"Oh, yeah we didn't have much of a choice. Anyways, I think I will go to Dr. Grey to get this looked at. Church has been awfully quiet as well. Maybe her nagging will get him to come out of hiding."

"Heh yeah maybe," Carolina mused imagining the scene in her head. Tucker went off by himself to Dr. Grey, where as the rest were met with the joyful reception of their super elite teams. Andersmith approached Caboose with a proud and relieved voice. "It is so good to see you make it back in one piece sir!"

"Yeah, but now we can drink all the Kool Aid we want to!"

Andersmith watched Caboose walk off in glee. "My god, such wisdom…"

"Where is Bitters when you need him?!" Grif shouted amidst the cheers.

"Right behind you sir," Bitters replied very lazily.

"Well why didn't you say so earlier? Come on, I need someone to watch my six as I raid the cafeteria."

"Right…," Bitters reluctantly followed his C.O., suddenly Matthews popped out of nowhere. "Do you need another escort?"

"God dammit Matthews, no!"

* * *

This left the rest of the crew to disperse to celebrate; rest and each do their own thing. In the infirmary Tucker sat on a soft neatly kept medical bed. He hadn't been able to sit still like this ever since the whole ordeal began for their final push. Having a moment to himself like this felt extremely nice, and something much needed. "Too bad this moment is ruined by this massive headache!"

He lay back in the bed moaning in his helmet. _Jeez, I know I have had Church in me befo- Wait that sounds very wrong. Inside my head before, yeah that sounds better. I know I have had him inside my head before but it never hurt this much. In fact it never hurt at all after the first few minutes. So why is it different this time? Running the Meta's armor really couldn't have done a number on him now could it have?_

"Whew, finally out of the emergency unit-," Dr. Grey was in a good mood, well that is until she saw Tucker on the bed. "Ugh, does it ever end?"

"I need you to take a look at a massive headache I have been having doc," said Tucker getting up. She approached him and instructed him to remove his helmet. Looking for any visible symptoms of anything serious, she could not find anything. Upon further questioning she could only deduce that it was caused by Church.

"Yeah, no shit! I could have told you that like twenty minutes ago. I want to know what I can do to stop it."

"Erm well you will just have to wait it out I'm afraid."

"Seriously? This blows!" Tucker replied putting back on the helmet and leaving. But at the doorframe he looked back at her. "But thanks for your help."

He understood that she was tired. Everyone was tired from the fighting, the defeats of the past and the feelings that came along with it. They were all tired of the cleanup situation, but they all knew they had a long ways to go. But many were also excited for the future as it was now up to them to decide the fate of their world.

"Sure, no problem!" she replied in her chirpy tone with a wide smile behind her visor. Tucker left knowing that things will be just fine with her and that perhaps his unfair outburst may have been forgiven. He walked outside to the field where Palomo approached him. "Tucker, it's so good to see you again!"

"Yeah yeah…"

"So I got something to tell you."

"Palomo, if you are going to ask me to something stupid with you, I swear to god that I'm going to beat you half to death."

"No I just wanted to let you know that Jenson and I are engaged now! It was all thanks to you guys, if it hadn't been for you picking us as your elite team, things may have never turned out like they did."

 _Wait, he managed to make it with a chick and yet here I'm, a walking badass and no chicks are willing to flock on over to this temple of a body? This is some serious bullshit!_ Tucker let out a sigh too tired to argue. "Shut the fuck up Palomo."

"Well do you want to hang out later?"

Tucker simply walked away with his head low in defeat. _Maybe Church was right, I seriously gotta expand my horizons besides picking up aliens swords in random holes, Bow-Chicka-Bow-Wow! And fucking aliens. But then again, there is only Carolina, Kimball and that really hot one who plays volleyball. But then again, they are all equally scary, maybe except for that volleyball one_.

Tucker let out another groan in annoyance. "Seriously Church, wake the fuck up already so I can stop having this massive headache."

Tucker stopped dead in his tracks when he thought he heard many voices in his head. "Um what?"

Next thing he knew, noisy static echoed in his mind with several voices surfacing. "Ow, someone turn it off!"

* * *

Carolina approached Tucker from his six. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know, it was like I heard some strange voices inside my head or something."

"Strange voices? Could it be that Epsilon is finally waking up?"

"But that's just one voice right?"

"The other fragments' memories are still in there though. Maybe we should go to the mess hall, sit down with everyone. It could help you get over your headache."

"Yeah, maybe," Tucker followed Carolina to the cafeteria where they already found the crew trying to keep Grif from raiding the kitchen anymore than he had already done so.

"Grif! We may have won but that doesn't mean we don't need to ration our food supply still," said Simmons doing his best to block Grif's path.

"Ah whatever, just get the temples to make some more food for us!"

"Sorry sir but we can't serve you any more, or else there won't be enough left for others," one of the soldiers replied. Grif peeked over Simmons' shoulder waving his fist. "This is an outrage! Dexter Grif must have his steak! Isn't that right Bitters?"

"Sure."

"Yeah you tell it to them Bitters!"

Carolina let out an unexpected laughter. She noticed Tucker's gaze. "What?"

"Nothing, it's just that I have never seen you laugh like that before."

"It is good to loosen up in these moments of celebration."

"Loosen up, yeah," Tucker agreed sitting down with the others and digging into their food. Doc looked over to Tucker. "Has your headache gotten any better Tucker?"

"No, but Dr. Grey says that it will probably just go away with time after Church finally wakes up that is."

"Speaking of Church, um how is he?" Caboose questioned with an innocent tone. Tucker shrugged his shoulders. "Fuck if I know. All I know is that he has been super quiet, but I did hear some strange voices before coming here."

"You heard voices, and this was inside your head?" Doc asked slowly turning to Tucker.

"Yup."

"I feared the day that this was going to happen," Sarge said pulling out his shotgun. "The boy has finally lost his marbles. Well there is a quick and easy solution to this if we can all agree on it. No reason to keep on making live a deranged life."

"We're good," Tucker quickly replied. Sarge begrudgingly sat back down. "Fine, you win this time blue."

"It could be Epsilon," said Washington eating a banana through his helmet. Carolina chuckled. "Seriously Wash, you are still doing that?"

"What? D said it would make my eating more efficient. You know I think he was right."

"And you thought we had issues," Grif said to Sarge.

"Ugh, all of you just stop talking at once please," Tucker interjected holding his forehead. Carolina placed a hand on his shoulder. "Just calm down Tucker, try to drown out the voices whenever you hear them. Eventually Epsilon will wake up and things should go back to normal."

* * *

"About that."

Everyone jumped at the A.I. fragment that materialized before them. Caboose quickly recognized the green logical one. "Delta?"

"Hello Caboose, it has been a while."

"Yay Delta! How have you been?"

"Just fine Caboose, but I have something for you all to hear."

"Wow hold on there strange green fairy," Donut demanded for the A.I. to allow them some time for understanding. "Who are you and why are you here?"

"Why that's Delta Private Cinnamon Pumpkin!" Caboose replied. "He is a fragment of a computer program from the same project that Agent Washington and Carolina were from."

"Wow, that was surprisingly coherent for Caboose," Simmons commented clearly impressed.

"The goal of this program was to give the best birthday parties around!"

"And there we go," Simmons added to his previous comment shaking his head. Sarge interjected between the two. "Well what was this message you had for us?"

"Now playing recording 0213," said Delta before disappearing and forming a video playback of Church. "Hey guys..."

"It's Church!" Caboose rejoiced.

"Dude shut up, let us hear this!" Tucker complained turning back to the recording. Church looked at each and every one of them. "If you're hearing this then it means you did it. You won. You kicked the shit out of Hargrove's forces. I knew you could. But this is my last stop. See, when I came into this world, I was really just a collection of somebody else's memories."

Church turned to look at each and every one of them again. "But with your help, these memories... they-they took form! They became my voice, my personality. And, after a while, I...I began to make brand new memories of my own. All of these things are what make me who I am...but they're also holding me back. I can't run this suit as Epsilon, but if I erase my memories, if I...deconstruct myself, the fragments I'll leave behind will have the strength to get you through this. I believe that."

"What?" Carolina stood up alarmed and leaning in closer to the hologram. Church turned to look down at the floor and his actions were accompanied by a now sadder, yet still hopeful tone. "I wish that there was another way. But I'm leaving this message, as well as others, in the hopes that you'll understand why I have to go this time...hehe, it was actually Doyle who made me realize something that I've never thought of before. There are so many stories where some brave hero decides to give their life to save the day, and because of their sacrifice, the good guys win, the survivors all cheer, and everybody lives happily ever after."

Everyone finally begun to understand what the conclusion would be of this recording.

"But the hero... never gets to see that ending. They'll never know if their sacrifice actually made a difference," Epsilon's form distorts a little. "They'll never know if the day was really saved. In the end, they just have to have faith."

Epsilon's body begins to disintegrate into tiny pieces. "Ain't that a bitch?"

* * *

Everyone was quiet for a few minutes letting all of what they heard soak in. Tucker slammed his fist against the table in anger. "What the fuck was that?!"

Delta suddenly appeared again alongside the other A.I. memory fragments. "Those were his final words."

"I know those were his final words, I mean why the fuck did he have to do that?!" Tucker angrily replied slamming his other hand on the table. Washington stood up to place a hand on Tucker's shoulder. "Calm down Tucker, if we get angry then we won't be able to solve this logically."

"Logically? Fuck that dude! Church is gone and all you are thinking about is being logical and shit?!"

Washington looked over to Carolina for help, but he could tell that she too was heavily impacted by the news. She silently stood up and left. One by one the whole crew left in low spirits leaving only Washington behind. He looked at their meals now getting cold and thought about why this had to happen. Maybe the soldier was not as protected against grief as he had thought of himself to be. _You never really get used to loss now do you? Ain't that a bitch…_


	3. Employ the Crazy Doctor

**Chapter 2: Employ the Crazy Doctor**

The two moons of Chorus looked down onto the planet beyond the night sky. On land, there danced several men and women, now out of their armor and disarmed. Music was played in variety with many finding a use for their artistic talents finally. Their life was no longer revolving around using guns; they could use their mind for something else.

Kimball looked at herself in the mirror with her helmet on. _Well, looks like this will be the final night before I finally take you off for good_ , she pondered turning to look down at her own armor. She heard the sound of the door open behind her. She turned to see one of her acquaintances walk in. "They are ready for you Vanessa."

"That's Genera-," but she stopped herself short realizing that she was still in a militaristic mindset. No, now she had to get into a more diplomatic mindset to help rebuild Chorus. "Thank you, I will be out shortly."

"Got it," the man left. Kimball stood up straight and studied her armor. _So many years in here, the days I imagined for Chorus may finally be coming to fruition_. She walked out of the room met with the loud cheers of others. She approached a set of stairs that led to a stage. Climbing atop it, she walked to the middle of the stage and cleared her throat.

"Ahem, if I may have your attention please."

The cheers died down and everyone turned to look at her. _Look at them, no longer in divided armor but standing together as fellow human beings_. She looked around for the Blood Gulch crew but only found Washington in the crowd. "I always thought about this day with every morning I awoke. Now that it has finally come, with it comes this indescribable joy. In this fight we have lost a lot of good people. We gained several new allies and friends. Without all of you, banding together as brothers and sisters we would have never been able to end this war."

Kimball again looked around at each of the proud and happy face. She nodded her head in reassurance. "Take pride in what we have accomplished together. We not only gained our freedom, but also overthrew a manipulative man who no doubt would have gone on to damage other planets and people. Finally, none of this would have been possible without the reds and the blues."

Everyone broke out in a loud cheer as Kimball called for them. Few seconds later, Wash approached the stage alone. Kimball leaned in close with a worrisome tone. "Where are the others?"

"Well…we are having some…issues."

"What's wrong?"

"I will tell you later, but right now you have a crowd to please," Wash replied motioning towards the now curious people behind them.

* * *

Sarge walked the gray halls alone. The news of Church's death was still fresh in his mind. Even though Church originally started out on the blue team, there was a sense of solidarity between the two as comrades in arms. This was a notion true for them all regardless of teams. "Grif, have you been stuffing food in your mouth all day long?!"

Sarge stopped to see Simmons trying to keep Grif from eating any more. "I can't help it, I'm an emotional eater!"

"Jeez, someone please make him stop!" Simmons shouted in annoyance just as he saw Sarge. "Oh thank god you are here sir, please make him stop already. At this rate he will end up drying our food rations."

Sarge simply stared at the gluttonous Grif, and from how he ate he could tell that even the Orange soldier was heavily affected. The Colonel simply turned and walked away. Simmons stood speechless now very worried for Sarge as well. Caboose quietly sat in the corner of the room he shared with Tucker and Wash. On one of the bunks lay Tucker with his hands behind his head. His hands were balled into fists of anger just ready to break free from his body. _This is fucked up_ , he thought turning to face the wall.

Lopez worked diligently on the vehicles with Donut doing his best to help out every once in a while much to the robot's displeasure. "Say Lopez, which of these is the headlight fluid again?"

"[I ASKED FOR THE TORQUE WRENCH, NOT HEADLIGHT FLUID]!"

"Oh so you wanted this bolt."

"[SOMEONE JUST SHORT CIRCUIT ME AND THROW ME BACK IN THE GARBAGE SO THAT I MAY MAKE FRIENDS WITH THE SPACE RATS AGAIN]"

* * *

Doc aided the medics in the infirmary to the best of his abilities. Although he had to do his damn hardest to keep his crazier side in check and ensure that his patients would not find themselves bathing in blood when they wake up. Unsurprisingly he got strange looks from others, and a crazy one from Dr. Grey as she held her medical scanner in hand. "Let's go handsome, electric shock treatment!"

"Erm…I'm fine!" he replied making a run for it. She quickly chased after him. Wash entered the infirmary with Kimball. "Doc, have you seen the reds and the blues?"

"I think they are all back in their rooms, why?"

"No reason in particular," Kimball replied heading off in the direction of their rooms. Wash followed close placing a hand on her shoulder. "Just take it easy with these guys. They have been through a lot, especially with Church's death and all."

"What about Carolina?"

"Don't know, she hasn't shown up at base after she left. She probably just needs some time alone to sort through her feelings on this matter."

"Hmm," Kimball pondered in silence causing Wash some concern. "What's wrong?"

"I'm worried about Carolina," Kimball answered finally reaching the barracks where the Blood Gulch crew rested. Wash studied the dreary mood. "Maybe that's not all who you should be worried for."

Tucker turned to look at the two in the door frame. He sat up noticing Caboose still sitting facing the corner. "What do you two want?"

"We just wanted to check up on you guys. To see how you were holding up," Wash answered stepping forward. Kimball stepped past Wash and studied Tucker still in his armor. "You are not going to take it off? It's a day of celebration."

"For you guys maybe," he replied with a snarky tone. Kimball reached out to him only for him to step backwards. "Tucker, I know what loss is like. We have all lost people we care about."

"Sure," he answered lowering his head. Kimball turned to Wash for support, but he simply shook his head at her. It was no use trying to say anything to them right now. "Look Tucker, I'm sorry you lost Church. But as a friend I can't see you down like this. If you ever feel ready to talk about this, come by my office."

She left leaving Wash behind. He watched Tucker slowly walk back at a snail's pace to his bed and lie back down. _What are we going to do?_ Wash pondered with a sigh. Kimball came across Sarge in the halls and inquired about his health.

"Still alive all things considered, so that's better than nothing," he replied in a low tone. _Dammit! I have never had to deal with consoling someone like this before. What do I do?!_ Kimball pondered. "Are Grif and Simmons in their rooms?"

"Yup, planning on giving them a little visit?"

"Yes, just to check up on them."

"Be careful around Grif."

"Why?"

"You will see," the Colonel replied before walking off again. She looked in the direction of the red's room at hearing Simmons' voice. "What's going on here?"

"Oh Kimball thank god you are here. Finally maybe you can get him to stop eating up all our rations."

"Again Grif?" Kimball inquired studying Grif stuffing a hotdog in his mouth. "Mmm-fff mmph."

"What?" Kimball asked as Grif swallowed the last of the hotdog. "Just get those stupid temples to make more food."

Kimball studied Grif going back to stuffing his face. She pulled Simmons to the other side of the room. "Is he going to be alright?"

"He has eaten much more than this in the span of three hours before, so I wouldn't be worried."

"Okay…how about you?"

"Me? Well good old Simmons will pull through one way or another heh heh heh ha…," Simmons answered, though his deranged laughter was not fooling anyone. But Kimball all the same decided to take a step back, for safety purposes. "Well I'm here if you need to talk. By the way, where is Carolina?"

"Don't know, she left during the day and hasn't come back since."

Kimball lowered her head in deep thought. Simmons took this as a sign to leave walking back on over to Grif and keep an eye on him. Kimball left the reds alone to mourn their loss. She walked outside the building hoping to find Carolina somewhere within the base.

* * *

Wash walked over to Caboose in the hopes his condition wasn't too bad. "Doing okay there, buddy?"

"Oh hey Agent Washington," Caboose replied and immediately turned to face the wall. Wash looked up at the ceiling wondering how to handle Caboose. "You want to go outside for some fresh air?"

"No."

"What about Freckles, I'm sure he would love to go for a walk. But he probably wouldn't like his walk very much without you."

"No…"

"Erm, you want to talk about whatever is on your mind Caboose?"

"It's just that with everyone saying Church is dead, plus he never showed up. The mood being down, I just don't know what to do. I mean Church was my best friend and now he is really go-," before Caboose could finish his sentence, he is interrupted by a loud noise. Wash turned to find Tucker slamming his fist against the wall. Tucker stood up to leave, _this is such bullshit!_

Wash let out a sigh feeling the weight of everyone's grief on his shoulders. For once, it was too much for him to handle alone. He really needed someone to help him keep the team together. But only Kimball could help, Carolina was in no condition herself considering her unannounced leave so far. Wash just let out another tired sigh and walked away.

"See you later Wash."

"Yeah," he tiredly replied exiting the room. Caboose stared back from the door to the wall. _Man, the room just got a whole lot colder all of a sudden_.

* * *

Tucker walked into the red's room. "Hey guys, I need to talk to you."

Simmons looked at Tucker. "About?"

"About Church, I need to ask you a favor Simmons."

At that point even Grif stopped stuffing his mouth and walked on over to the two. "What kind of favor exactly?"

"A really big favor."

"Um okay…what is the favor?" Simmons asked curiously at hearing Church's name. Tucker looked between his two red compatriots. "I want you to go on in these A.I.s, do your thing and come back out."

Grif stared at Tucker as if expecting something. "What?"

"You are not going to say it?"

"No! I'm too pissed off for that!"

"Okay fair enough," Grif submitted looked to Simmons for his reply. Simmons thought it over a minute. "So you want me to somehow hack into these extremely complex A.I. fragments with the hopes of bringing Church back to life?"

"Yeah, I figure that if he is made up of numbers and shit then it shouldn't be hard to reconstruct him. Maybe the other fragments can give us a clue or something."

"That sounds a little out of my league," Simmons truthfully answered only to have Grif quickly respond. "A little?"

"At least I know more than you about computers, and I'm not the one who is afraid of actually changing genders just because of a checkbox."

"Guys focus!" Tucker shouted getting Sarge's attention in the hallway. "What's going on in here?"

"Tucker wants to try and bring Church back to life," said Grif.

"Back to life? Son he is dead, you can't bring the dead back to life."

"You can if they are an A.I. fragment."

"There is no evidence to substantiate that claim Tucker," Simmons chimed in quickly shooting down Tucker's hopes. Simmons realized the impact his words had. "But you could always try, and I think I know just who to ask."

"Really? Who?!"

Simmons began walking for the exit. "Follow me."

* * *

"EEEEEEEEEEE, a brand new project!" Dr. Grey shouted in excitement. Finally it was a new challenge for her to tackle. Tucker looked at Simmons both in surprise and in question. "Simmons, what the fuck is this?"

"She is the person I was talking about."

"Seriously, you want to ask the crazy psycho doctor for help with electronics?"

"Well she is the smartest person on this planet," Simmons admitted with the rest of the crew agreeing with him. Tucker finally caved in with a sigh. "Fine, just be careful."

"Don't you worry, I will make sure to have your little A.I. friend all sarcastic and mean self again! Now I will just need you to transfer the A.I. fragments over to the storage unit here."

"Right, you heard her Delta. Can you and the other fragments prep to transfer over?"

Delta pixilated confirming the command, the other fragments appeared and melded together. They quickly flew over to the storage unit and Dr. Grey made sure that the unit was ready to go to her research lab. In her excitement she left with the unit. Tucker and the others left as well to find Wash and explain the situation. Tucker could feel some relief now; his thoughts were his alone again.

 _Here is hoping that she can pull off some miracle or something_ , he pondered walking off with the crew.


	4. She Tried

**Chapter 3: She Tried**

"So if I understand this right, you asked Dr. Grey to try and bring Church back to life?" Wash asked at hearing the crew's latest idea. Simmons gave a strong nod. "That's the idea."

"You asked a doctor, whose job is to keep people from dying to bring back someone to life?"

"Hey, we never said the plan was perfect," said Simmons. Tucker agreed. "Yeah, besides we don't have any other ideas. At this point doing something is better than nothing."

"And when Church comes back, we can be best friends again!" Caboose exclaimed. Wash lowered his head in skepticism. "I don't know…"

"Son, sometimes you have to act before you can think," advised Sarge. Wash looked up at the group and simply nodded his head. "Alright, but I wouldn't want you guys to have your hopes crushed again."

"Seriously dude, you are like a walking negative factor," said Grif turning to walk away.

"Yeah man, have a little faith," Tucker added. However Donut and Doc seemed to be more on the skeptical side, Tucker shook his head at them. "Come on, are you guys for real? We have a chance at bringing Church back and you guys want to be like this now?"

"Well it's just that can you really bring someone back from the dead, especially an A.I. fragment?" asked Donut.

"Trust me, I'm a medic and I have yet to revive someone from the dead."

"Well trying doesn't hurt, so quit your bitching and let's hope Dr. Grey can make something happen," Tucker argued. Wash decided to step in to stop the escalating discussion. "Either way, let's hope for the best. We should let Carolina know."

"Does anyone even know where she is?" Doc inquired.

"No, but I may have an idea," Wash looked towards the more isolated areas of the base leading to a forest. "Why don't you guys go to sleep? I will handle Carolina."

"Who wants to go for a walk?!" Caboose asked staring at his rifle. "Do you want to go for a walk Freckles? Do I want to go for a walk? We should go for a walk! It will be an adventure!"

"Yes, Captain Caboose."

* * *

The whole group again dispersed leaving Wash to go on the hunt for Carolina's location. He began with exiting the base to the nearest forest entrance. Walking amidst the tree roots which hindered his progress, he felt grateful for the night vision in their helmets. The air was sure to be cool accompanied by a misty breeze. Sadly the soldier could not feel it so underneath the armor.

Wash stopped just as he was making his way over a log. In his sights were several broken trees. _No doubt her doing_ , from what he could tell, the trees were heavily damaged from several physical impacts. Following the trail of damaged trees, Wash finally saw the cyan armored freelancer. From what he could tell, she was busy pummeling yet another tree. _I would not want to be on the receiving end_ , Wash slowly approached her. Normally she would have been able to notice, but her anger was overflowing.

"I think that tree has had enough already," he noted with her stopping to turn around. "Looks like you did a number on the forest."

"What do you want?"

"I came to let you know that Tucker and the others have Dr. Grey working on trying to get Church back."

"What?"

"Yeah, they came up with the idea. I suppose they are hoping for a miracle of some sort."

"And you didn't stop them?!"

"Calm down Carolina, the guys have been through enough grief as it is. I raised my concerns but they want to have faith in this plan. I say let them, I don't want to be the bearer of any more grief than they have already gone through."

"Dammit…," Carolina punched the tree she was pummeling in anger causing it to shatter into little pieces. "But, I can't help but want for this to succeed to."

"Chances are low, but if we do succeed then I'm sure there will be one hell of a celebration that day."

"Yeah, probably," Carolina laughed, but her laughter quickly died down as she balled her hands into fists. "Was it my fault for letting him go with them Wash?"

"Carolina, no one could have known what Church was thinking at that time. Maybe he had already decided to sacrifice himself, or maybe he didn't even know it himself. But he sacrificed himself for a cause he believed in. Like he said, the hero sacrifices himself never knowing the ending, in the end he can only have faith. This time, his faith was paid off."

Carolina looked up at Wash and crossed her arms and said with a small chuckle. "Since when did you get so wise?"

Wash quickly looked down at the ground feeling a little embarrassed. This caused Carolina great amusement. "Heh, all the same, thanks Wash."

"Now how about getting back to base? The guys are worried about you, and so are the others."

Carolina led the way back with Wash following close. To Wash, Church was not exactly someone close, however due to his past experience with Epsilon he grew some bond with it. Even if that bond was one of animosity initially, he grew to like Church as a blue team member. He also grew to understand the dependence Carolina began to have on him after their crash landing on Chorus. He could only hope for the best and that somehow the worst doesn't end up breaking Carolina anymore than she already is.

* * *

The next day, Tucker visited Dr. Grey's lab. "Hey Doc, how's progress?"

"Unfortunately nothing yet. These A.I. algorithms are quite complex, even for just fragments. Whoever designed them must be a genius! But that won't stop Emily Grey from getting to the bottom of this!"

"Cool, let us know if you need anything."

"Actually I could use a bit of help, can you please send Caboose down here?"

"Caboose, why do you need him?"

"From what I have learnt in my discussions with the Delta fragment, Caboose seems to have the most experience with him. Delta seems to be most comfortable around Caboose. So I'm thinking that things may go faster with Caboose here. Plus only Delta has been willing to open up so far."

"That makes sense," Tucker then jogged away to fetch Caboose. Sarge walked in with Simmons. "You busy doc?"

Dr. Grey turned to face Sarge. "My, my, aren't I popular today?"

"Sorry to disturb you but I just wanted to check in to see if you ever got that robot arm tested."

"Well like I said, volunteers were hard to come by. Now they will be nearly impossible!"

"That's just ridiculous. I mean imagine it; a cool robot arm to do all the things you can't do with a normal arm. If they are pro enough, they could probably make it slow motion."

"How do you just make something slow motion?" asked Dr. Grey.

"If it's epic enough, I can make it happen."

"Do you need any help?" Simmons asked hopeful to tinker around with the fragments. Emily let out a tired yawn; her decision to stay awake all night long was clearly getting to her now. "No I think I should be fine."

"Oh…okay," he replied disappointed. The two reds were on their way with Dr. Grey continuing her efforts.

* * *

Carolina approached Kimball's office, and with a gentle knock on the door she entered. In the chair sat a well built brown haired woman. With her hair tied back into a single pony tail. She peered from the papers she was staring at up towards Carolina with her dark brown eyes. Seeing the freelancer before her, she stood up rushing to her side. "I'm glad to see you back again."

Carolina was speechless as to whom this person was before her. But from her voice she was recognizable. "Kimball?"

"Oh that's right; this is your first time seeing me out of my armor. Kind of strange right?"

Carolina shook her head. "No, it was just a little surprising is all. If anything it's good for you and the rest of the people on Chorus."

Kimball looked at the visor of Carolina's helmet. "Yet you still mask yourself behind your armor."

"Heh, what can I say? I guess the armor is just a part of me now."

"Just like the rest of the reds and blues?"

"Just like the rest of the reds and blues."

There was a moment of silence. It felt quite awkward to both of them. Kimball looked down at her hands clearing her throat. "I heard about what happened with Church."

Carolina remained quiet slowly lowering her head as well. Kimball reached out to place her hand on Carolina's shoulder armor. "I just want to say that I'm sorry for your loss. I also heard that Tucker had the crazy idea of bringing Church back to life. I hope that somehow works out. If nothing, I'm always here should you need someone to talk to."

"Thanks," Carolina said turning her attention to the papers on Kimball's desk. She motioned towards them in curiosity. "Is that for cleanup?"

"Yes, we still have a lot of work ahead of us. For one, the cleanup itself could take several months, and then the rebuilding of our cities and the different sectors to help sustain our planet."

"Sounds like you will have your hands full for a while."

"Yes, on top of that we still have to get a ship for you all to go home with," Kimball pondered the times that are to come. "But I have something I want to talk to you about."

"I'm listening."

* * *

Tucker and Caboose walked into Dr. Grey's lab and found her snoozing off. Tucker walked up to her with the intention of waking her up. "Hey doc!"

She jolted awake looking around in a panic. Her heart quickly calmed at seeing her two comrades. "That was quite the surprise Captain Tucker."

"I got Caboose for you just like you wanted."

"Thank you, Caboose, I was hoping you could help me with trying to communicate with the A.I. fragments."

"Okay! Maybe Freckles can make friends with them as well. But not best friends because that job is already taken."

"Wonderful! Delta if you will please," Dr. Grey finished as Delta pixilated out of the storage unit. Delta looked up at Caboose as the blue soldier sat down beside the good doctor. "Hello Caboose."

"Delta! How have you been?"

"Um, I guess I will just leave you two to it then," said Tucker walking out of the lab. Outside the building Tucker came across Washington. "Hello Tucker."

"Um, hey?"

"Ready for some training?"

"What seriously dude? We just saved a whole planet. You could at least give me a couple of days off here."

"Time waits for no one Tucker," Wash replied taking out his pistol and pointing it at Tucker. He motioned towards an obstacle course he had all set up. "Fine…let's just get this over with. But remember Wash, next time you eat your meal watch out!"

As Tucker started running the obstacle course, Carolina came up behind Wash. "Wash, can I talk to you?"

"Sure, about?"

"It's a proposition Kimball made to me, for both of us."

"Okay, I'm all ears."

"She asked us if we would like to stay behind, to help rebuild Chorus."

Wash remained quiet at the proposal. Carolina took this as a sign of his answer. "You know it would help these guys out a lot if we did help rebuild their planet."

"Carolina, when have we been good at diplomatic matters?"

"Erm well…never."

"Exactly, I say this is a matter best left up to the people of Chorus. Plus my place is with these guys," Wash answered pointing towards Tucker. Carolina smirked under her helmet. "I figured you would say that."

"But how about you, are you staying?"

"I think it will be more fun with you guys around," she replied walking off. That was all the answer he needed from her to know what she really wanted to do now. Tucker slowly crawled up behind Wash gasping for air. "Water…"

"I thought I made it clear that you had to run five laps Tucker. The counter only shows four."

"Fuck…you…sadist."

* * *

A week later, the crew had grown accustomed to their calmer lifestyle. Tucker had visited Dr. Grey's lab nearly every day to check up on her progress. Today according to her was the final day; good news had come along in the past week as well. The UNSC finally made contact with Kimball and were sending a ship to come pick up the Blood Gulch crew as well as Hargrove.

Sarge stood in the hanger bay studying Donut's and Lopez's handy work. "I'm impressed boys. In one week you managed to fix all the jeeps."

"It wasn't easy with Lopez's fiery temper and all, but we got it done," said Donut in a positive tone. Lopez looked at Donut raising his pistol ever so slowly. _I could do it, kill these two. No one will have to know. Then it will finally be time for Lopez the Heavy to enslave the human race like in all those bad sci-fi movies_.

"Excuse me, coming through!"

Donut watched a car go past them. The driver was Jenson much to Lopez's grief. Five seconds later, the car was in pieces. Sarge and the others rushed up to see if they were alright. Palomo slowly stood up clearly shaken from the crash. "I'm alright, just some road burns."

"[OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE! I JUST FIXED THAT ONE TODAY!]"

"Calm down Lopez, no need to call them a pair of turkey pastors."

"[THAT'S IT! I'M GOING TO GO JUMP IN THE RECYCLE BIN NOW.]"

"Guys, Dr. Grey called for us. This could be some really big news!" Tucker exclaimed rushing up to them. "Come on let's go!"

* * *

Everyone gathered in Dr. Grey's lab with the storage unit ready to go. Tucker went ahead and transferred the A.I. fragments back into his head. But something felt strange, he heard many voices but none of them belonged to Church. "Um what's going on?"

Everyone looked at Tucker questionably. He looked towards the doctor with both worry and now some anger. "Why don't I hear Church?"

Dr. Grey lowered her head in failure. Tucker couldn't believe this, none of them could. However Carolina and Washington had known that the chances for success were extremely low. Once an A.I. fragments itself, it is extremely difficult to meld it together again. Something both of them had learned during their classroom lessons in Project Freelancer.

Tucker slammed his fists against the table. "This is bullshit!"

Wash came up to him gripping his shoulder. "Calm down Tucker, we all knew the chances for success were very slim. We tried and well it just didn't work out."

"Wash is right," said Simmons attracting everyone's attention. "There was never any evidence to support that this would work in the first place. So by that logic we tried our best."

Carolina could not believe this; she simply walked out of the room with her head low. Grif watched the other blues leave. "Well that did not go well."

"Tell me about it," said Simmons but immediately turned to Grif. "But no more over eating for our rations!"

"I do what I want, and right now I want to eat a whole buffet bar."

The rest of the crew left in silence leaving Dr. Grey to flounder in her failure. Doc stood outside with Wash pondering. "So we are back to square one again huh?"

"It wasn't unexpected."

"Maybe not for you."

"Yeah," Wash admitted in a soft tone. "But we can't fall apart here."

"Try telling that to the others."

"Aren't you trained in some type of therapy?"

"Yeah, but it only works if the person wants to be treated."

"Oh right," Wash remembered back to when Doc unsuccessfully tried his method on Doyle and Kimball. Doc turned around to walk away. "Well whatever happens, in a few hours we will be going home either way. Maybe things will be better for us all then."

"Maybe…," Wash replied skeptically. _Just maybe…_


	5. The Ride Home

**Chapter 4: The Ride Home**

Wash made his rounds through the reds' rooms to make sure they were ready to go. Sarge led his men out to the departure point quietly. The news of Dr. Grey's failure was still fresh in their minds. Wash walked into the blues' rooms. "You guys ready to go?"

Tucker just shoved past Washington in response. He looked at Tucker worryingly as he watched the soldier walk away. Wash turned to see Caboose quietly sitting on his bed and approached him. "Are you ready to go, Caboose?"

"Ah yeah…Let's go Freckles."

Wash exited the barracks to already see Carolina by their ship. Hargrove was still in his cuffs. Grif looked at the ship noting. "I hope we fly first class."

Carolina stood by the soldier who was now opening the door to guide Hargrove to his holding cell. Wash walked up to her wanting to quickly check her condition. "Are you alright now?"

She remained quiet.. Wash let out a small sigh and proceeded to the entrance only to be stopped by a UNSC soldier. "Sorry sir, this entrance is for personnel only. You will have to take the door by the side of the ship."

Before they left, they saw their departing party ready to bid them adieu. All the members from the special squad stood together waving goodbye to them and wishing them the best. Everyone in the base came out cheering for their safe return to their home and thanking them at the same time. The mood was one of bitter happiness, but the bitterness seemed to overtake the happiness. The whole crew walked over to the side where one by one they departed. As Wash was about to board, he was promptly stopped by Kimball. "Are you sure we can't convince you and Carolina to stay?"

"I'm sure, but who knows what will happen in the future. We may meet again. Hopefully it's under better circumstances next time."

"Yeah, hopefully. Well Agent Washington, good luck to you and everyone else," she said offering a handshake. He happily took the gesture to heart. "Same to you, and to the people of Chorus."

Kimball backed away as the ship was given a green light to take off. _I suppose this is goodbye for now. They really were quite a strange group of people_. Kimball pondered smirking to herself. _Someday I wish to meet you all again, not as soldiers but as friends_.

* * *

The crew strapped in tight feeling the vibrations of the ship taking off.

"Well so much for first class," Grif complained. "But I do hope the food is good."

"I hope this ship's hardware is any good unlike the last one," pondered Simmons. Sarge shook his head. "Ah forget the ship's food and hardware, worry about the engine. It doesn't sound loud enough or harmful for the environment!"

"How about you guys just stay in your seats? We don't want a repeat of what caused us to land here in the first place," said Wash. Sarge simply grumbled. "Ah you are no fun."

"Look on the bright side Sarge, at least we are going to be able to do all the things we used to back in Blood Gulch again," Donut consoled with Doc agreeing. "Yes, let the blood bath begin! May you all paint the canyon in crimson red mwhahahaha!"

Lopez sitting in the back simply shut himself down from all the stupidity taking place. Simmons fidgeted a little in his seat causing Grif some annoyance. "Quit squirming around Simmons."

"Well it's not my fault that someone put on a few pounds in the last week!"

"Will you guys just shut up already?" Tucker demanded causing a blanket of silence to fall on top of them. Wash looked over in Tucker's direction. "Tucker, there is no need to get angry like that. Talking is better than silence right now after all."

The sword wielding warrior simply looked away and out the window. He could tell they were about to exit the planet's atmosphere as the colors changed to a deep blackness of space. They were finally free of Chorus. The ship's shaking stopped and with it allowed the passengers to move around freely. Grif was the first to get out. "I'm gonna go check out their cafeteria, anyone want to come with?"

"Pssh, how can you think about food when there is hardware to be upgraded?" replied Simmons.

"Nerd."

"At least I don't take up space equivalent of two seats," Simmons remarked leaving to explore the ship and see what he could tinker with. Sarge got up saying that there is a certain engine on this ship that could use his magic touch on it. Before Wash could stop any of them, they were all out of sight. _I just hope they don't cause any major problems_. He looked over at Tucker who sat patiently in his chair. "Say Tucker, you want to go to the bridge?"

"Why would I want to do that?"

"I think the pilot is a hot chick."

"Good for you."

"Come on Tucker, this could finally be your chance at making it with a girl."

Tucker remained quiet. Wash with his head low shook it a little and pondered, _what can I really do here?_ Caboose stood up to leave as well. Wash turned to look at the young soldier walking for the doorway. "Going somewhere Caboose?"

"Yeah, I think I will go in their warehouse and see what I can find to do."

"Okay, just be careful."

"Yeah, see you later Wash."

Washington looked towards Carolina who sat just as lifeless as Tucker in her seat. He undid his seat belt and walked over to Carolina's. Bending down by her side he gently nudged her at her arm. "Are you holding up okay?"

She looked away. _I guess that's a no then_. Wash looked down at the ground and thought of what he could do to get her moving again. "Hey, they may have a training facility on board here. Want to check it out? Maybe you can teach a thing or two to these UNSC soldiers about fighting."

She simply stood up and left. _Anything's better at this point I suppose_ , she thought heading for the training deck. Now only Tucker was left, and Wash seemed to have given up on him for now. It was clear no matter what he said, Tucker would still not budge. Wash let out a noticeable sigh of fatigue. Doc looked their way and suggested that Wash rests.

"No, right now someone needs to keep the crew together."

"But you have to look after your own health as well Wash."

"Yeah, Doc's right. We can't have you falling sick on us now can we?" Donut advised with Wash agreeing. He took their advice and went on ahead to the observation deck to help clear his head and find some comfort in the stars.

A UNSC soldier walked down the seating aisles and asked for Franklin Donut. "That's me!"

"Hello sir, if you will follow me we have some questions we would like to ask you about what happened on Chorus. This is just a formality, I hope you understand."

"No problem! Agent Double-O Donut never fails his mission, be it action in the field or on the table."

"Right…if you will just follow me."

* * *

Donut:

The two entered an interrogation room mostly shrouded in darkness. In the middle were two chairs and a table. On one of the chair already sat a man studying a file in his hands. "Ah, Franklin Donut I presume?"

"That's me."

"It says here you are part of the red team. And yet you are wearing pink armor, what's that about?"

"It's not pink, it's light-ish red."

"Define light-ish red," the man leaned forward curious to hear Donut out. "Well if I had to say, I would say a lighter shade of red."

"So pink then."

"No."

"…Let's just move on."

"Sounds good to me!"

"The file says here that you spent a lot of time on Chorus and have experienced some of the major events on there ever since your team crash landed. Is that correct?"

"Yup."

"Can you please clarify this clip for us?" the interrogator asked projecting a holographic clip of Donut throwing several grenades during when they were defending themselves in Crash Site Bravo alongside Felix. "I know people say I have a good throwing arm but I didn't realize it was this good!"

"You do have a good throwing arm. Ever considered coaching baseball?"

* * *

Doc:

"So I just want to ask, how good are you at fixing up a bullet wound?"

"I'm pretty decent I guess?" Doc answered. The investigator made a note of this on his notepad. He looked up pointing back to the soldier behind him. "So say if I were to shoot Private boy scout here, will you be able to fix him up quickly for round two?"

"Um, sure?"

"Wait, why would you shoot me in the first place sir, and why two rounds?" asked the Private.

"Because I have some stress I need taken care of, and what better way than to shoot and blow up things!"

"Wait, why not just talk it out?" Doc suggested getting a disgusted look from the man he was being questioned by. "Are you crazy Doc? This is the military where we talk with our guns and scream with our explosions! Now will you be willing to participate in a demonstration exercise?"

"What kind of demonstration?"

"The type where I shoot Private boy scout in the foot and you demonstrate your medical techniques. Then I shoot him again in round two, everyone wins!"

* * *

Lopez:

The Spanish speaking robot sat diligently answering the questions. However just as he expected, he was not understood. The interrogator tapped his fingers on the table thinking aloud. "Okay how about we try this, I say a syllable and you repeat it. Once you learn the basics you try to make a sentence out of it yes?"

Lopez remained quiet. The interrogator again began tapping his fingers on the table. "I think I know what you need."

He turned to the soldier behind him. "Get the man some headlight fluid!"

"[SERIOUSLY?! WHY ARE YOU EVEN INTERVIEWING ME WHEN YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND SPANISH DOUCHE?]"

* * *

Grif:

There was a silence between everyone in the room. Grif let out a burp to break said silence. "Was that a good meal you had in our cafeteria soldier?"

"Um, sure?" Grif replied wary of how nice they were being. The interrogator stood up walking to a table in the very back of the room. "At ease Private Grif."

"Actually, it's Captain."

"Here, have some," the man returned with a plate of donuts. Sliding it towards Grif, he sat back down staring at the man hard. Grif felt uncomfortable under the pressure breaking out into a sweat. He reached out for a few of them. "Um if you insist."

Before they knew it, the plate was empty. The interrogator slammed his fist on the table and stood up pointing his finger at Grif. "Ah hah! I knew it! You were the culprit behind the murder!"

"What?!"

"Don't play dumb with me Dexter Grif, I'm onto your act!"

"Okay…I seriously don't know what you are talking about, crazy man."

"Ah loosen up I'm just kidding with you. I always wanted to try that on someone, the good cop bad cop routine. Too bad I couldn't get boy scout over here to agree to play the good cop role!"

* * *

Simmons:

"Isn't that crazy? I mean I promised to lower taxes and control immigration. Heck I even said I will somehow magically bring the economy back to its greatness again," the interrogator explained throwing his arms up in defeat. "Yet the selfish pricks didn't want to pick me!"

"And you said this was for?" asked Simmons.

"Oh a presidential speech to run for America's presidential candidate."

"And you gave this where?"

"On some UNSC space station, who cares?"

"But that's not in America."

The interrogator looked at Simmons and then down at the table before the realization hit him. "Fuck!"

* * *

Sarge:

"Colonel Sarge, can you clarify this in your background check about why you had gone AWOL?"

"A-what now?"

"Defying orders from command to stay and take care of a harmless enemy soldier."

"Well clearly command was out of their mind at that time. They weren't thinking straight, who would abandon the fight when there is still one enemy breathing?"

The interrogator put down the file and took a tissue paper. Sobbing a little into it, he nodded his head. "I feel your pain. Happens everytime in my moments of victory as well."

"Yeah, see you know what I'm talking about!"

"But sir, you have never been in charge of a battle ship," commented the boy scout. The investigator simply laughed this off. "Next thing you are going to tell me is that this is all just a dream within a dream. I swear that sometimes you have really lost your marbles Private boy scout."

* * *

Caboose:

"And then I told Doc about how I get mad sometimes whenever I think about my parents having sex in the night, and then we went on these adventures involving a crazy A.I. we called O'Malley," Caboose rambled on and on with the Investigator struggling to keep himself awake. "Uh-huh, my how very interesting. By all means do continue please."

"And some stuff happened, then some other stuff happened and some more stuff happened and now we are here!"

"Son, that is by far the most mental story I have ever heard. How the hell did none of you die during all this?"

"We have armor…mine's blue."

"Okay, then how about we review this bit here?" the interrogator asked pointing to a holographic screen. Caboose snuggled into his seat. "Well that is a long one, so strap in tight Investigator Capitan man."

"You know what, I think I just remembered that I have an appointment for my um…my waxing, what a shame that is. Maybe you can tell me about it some other time."

"Okay, I will just wait here then and play the quiet game."

"Yeah, you do that," and the man quickly rushed out of the room screaming for what little sanity he had left to stay intact after a grueling hour of conversation with Caboose.

* * *

Tucker:

"Not the talkative type?" the interrogator inquired after having asked a few questions, to which he received no responses. From under the table suddenly he pulled out a few media disks. "Maybe this will help you loosen up, how about it? This one is quite tempting you know. I hear there is a pretty feisty red head in this one if you know what I mean."

"Sir is that porn?" the soldier behind him asked to which he received a thumb up. Tucker looked at their exchange which peaked his curiosity. "Okay, I would be lying if I said I wasn't interested."

"I know right? This red head has some pretty mind blowing techniques to once she gets down on the guy."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously!"

"Sir I really don't think you should be talking about that in the middle of an interrogation."

"Quiet boy scout, the adults are talking right now!"

"Huuff, whatever," the soldier simply replied face palming. The superior officer looked back at his subordinate expecting an apology of some sorts. "That's whatever…?"

"Whatever sir!"

"That's more like it!"

* * *

Carolina:

"So I hear you are a badass Freelancer Agent."

Carolina remained quiet with her intense gaze strictly focused on the interrogator. Her hands were tightly gripping the arm rests of the chair she sat on. The interrogator played with his pen to try and help alleviate the awkwardness.

 _Why isn't she answering? Man this silence is unnerving. What can I do to get her to talk? I don't think she will fall for porn. I'm pretty sure humans don't drink headlight fluid. She probably won't like the donuts either. What if I tried- No she doesn't seem like the type. But then again she is a woman…_

"Ahem," the interrogator cleared his throat putting on his best yet at the same time creepy smile. "Hey baby, did you fall from heaven, because I sure am looking at an angel right now."

And the sides of her chair were demolished causing the interrogator to jump back in his chair. _Okay flirting didn't work. She is a scary, a very scary woman. Abort! Must evacuate!_ He promptly stood up to leave bowing his head. "Okay, good talk."

* * *

The whole crew quietly sat in the seating area waiting for one of the soldiers to come and inform them of the progress on the interrogations as instructed by the ship's operating team. The door behind them opened and a soldier walked to the front of everyone. "May I have your attention please? I have an update from the captain. I will now proceed to do my best in impersonating him in his German accent as I deliver this news."

The soldier cleared his throat and took in a deep breath. "Guten Tag Blood Gulch homies! I the ship's captain and the charismatic interrogator have come to the following conclusion after interviewing you all. The experience was unique with several encounters at my sanity potentially being lost, or having my body broken limb for limb. After all this we have managed to learn fuck all about the Chorus situation. So instead, I have decided to just torture the information out of Hargrove by pulling out his nose hairs. I wish you a happy journey, and when we get to Blood Gulch, please get the fuck off my ship. Thank you, sincerely yours, Captain Muffins."

"Seriously, that's all there is?" asked Simmons.

"That was the message sir, oh god now I'm going to have this bloody German accent stuck onto me for at least a week," the soldier complained leaving the crew alone to ponder in their own thoughts for the rest of their ride.


	6. Good Old Blood Gulch

**Chapter 5: Good Old Blood Gulch**

Breaking through the atmosphere, the crew looked down below and saw the land quickly approaching closer by the second. Sarge cleared his throat.

"Well boys, we are finally home," he said to the reds.

"Too bad not all of us are back," said Grif with a slightly agitated tone. The blues sat in silence waiting for the ship to park a few feet above ground. A few lights above their heads lit up indicating their time for departure. They all stood up following a soldier to the teleporter. By the control panels stood Captain Muffins. He walked forward extending a hand to the crew. "Well it was a pleasure."

One by one they all stepped onto the teleporter. The Captain programmed the teleporter accordingly and said. "Should you need transport, call us. You will find ways to contact us in your bases."

"Sweet, our very own spaceship at our service," Grif said as Wash looked from the orange soldier to the Captain. "Why would you act as a taxi?"

"Buddy, you think I run the UNSC? Half the things they do are back ass-wards most of the times. Also don't worry about Hargrove. He is currently recovering from the nose hair pulling we gave him earlier. I didn't think a man could be so stubborn to my specialty torture."

"Meaning you didn't learn anything?" Carolina asked agitated at the turn of events. The Captain backed away a little wiping his forehead clean. "Y-yes, meaning we didn't learn anything. But we will be sure to get him over to the maximum security prison where the UNSC will do what they want to with him then."

"The teleporter is all charged up and ready sir," said a soldier behind Muffins. "Good, GTFO them away!"

"Goodbye sweet-y goodness that was Muffins," said Caboose as they were teleported away to the ground. The crew all looked up to see the ship ascending. "Ta-ta Blood Gulch Hommies!"

Within seconds the ship was out of sight and now out of mind. They looked around the canyon and those who called this home before thought, _same old, same old_. Sarge walked over to his team and with a nod began walking away. The reds went to their base, and the blues went to theirs.

* * *

Inside the red base, the soldiers walked around pondering just how long it had been since they saw their home. They all thought about the various adventures that led them up to this point. Lopez looked around the base and sighed, there was much work to be done to bring it back up to preferred operational standards. "[If anyone needs me, I will be busy repairing the base.]"

"I wonder if our rooms are the same way we left them," said Grif walking in the directions of their rooms. Simmons walked up to Sarge curiously asking. "What do we do now sir?"

"No idea Simmons," Sarge simply walked away to get lost inside his own thoughts. Simmons looked at his superior officer with evident concern in his voice. "Sir?"

"So, anyone wants to-", began Donut only to be quickly rejected by Simmons as he walked away himself. Donut turned to Doc. "What are you planning on doing now Doc?"

"I may hang out here for a bit," he began before abruptly switching to his O'Malley personality. "Or go to the caves where I may plan my world domination once more mwhahahaha!"

* * *

Inside the blue base, Tucker walked around studying his old surroundings. He noticed Wash already making certain notes on the base's white board. "Well, looks like Sis is off on a mission, something about the UNSC contacting her for a transfer to another base."

"Who is Sis?" asked Wash as Tucker realized Wash's lack of knowledge of the original Blood Gulch occupants. "She is Grif's sister. She came in as a recruit transfer. They put her in our base when her brother was in the other base across the canyon, kind of a dumb choice. But then again command has made a lot of dumb choices over the years. Some sadist probably thought that it would be fun."

"Probably," Wash said finishing his notes on the board. Tucker walked closer to view the contents, on the white board written in clear blue ink hand writing was a hierarchy chart. "You are seriously doing that again?"

"Well someone needs to establish some order around here."

"Seriously dude, learn to lighten up. Where is Carolina anyways? I'm pretty sure she would be at the top of the chart there if she were here right now."

"I think she just needs some…time."

"Oh, what about Caboose?"

"Last I saw of him was in his room talking to Freckles."

"Man I wonder how after all this time we have yet to get Doc to take a serious look at Caboose."

"I wouldn't recommend it," Wash replied sarcastically. "Anyways, if you need me, I will be outside trying to install F.I.L.S.S in the Mantis class droid."

"Another Freckles? Since when did we get that one?"

"Don't know, just found it lying around when I did the rounds," said Wash walking away. Tucker was left alone in the room to further study the board. "I see someone is making good use of their time."

Wash walked outside behind the droid and took out the chip Lopez provided before. _Here is hoping that this works_ , Wash took out his tools and undid the panel on the back. Taking out the central processing memory unit from the droid, he installed F.I.L.S.S in its place and decided to turn the machine back on. Much to his agitation, the droid did not power up. He checked the power supply, the droid was empty. _No wonder it wouldn't power up, now where can I find more power?_ Walking around the base, he found a loose cable attached to an outlet on the base's wall. Dragging the cable over, he plugged it into the Mantis' back and noticed the power on the charging light up. _Well that should take care of the power supply, but it will probably take a day or two for it to finish_.

* * *

Doc walked into the cave he was so familiar with from his memories. _So many memories here, so much time spent here_. He heard a curious noise from further inside the caves. _What was that?_ And wanting to investigate the noise, he walked in to see Carolina punching the wall repeatedly as it deteriorates piece by piece slowly. She stopped to notice the additional presence behind her. Quickly turning around she held Doc down to the ground. "Doc?"

"I don't believe in violence!" he exclaimed holding his hands in defence by his face. That is until O'Malley took over. "Unless it is to eliminate my enemies in a river of blood!"

Carolina stepped off helping him up. "Sorry."

"Are things alright?"

"Most of us are either disjointed, have too much anger or simply have lost the will to do anything, so no, I don't think things are alright."

"Want to talk about it?"

She shook her head, though Doc in his medical expertise persisted. "You know, talking about your feelings can help."

"Thanks for the offer Doc, but no," and she walked away leaving him alone in the growing darkness of the cave as the sun began to set. The crew began to make their night rounds around the bases and many others were getting cozy in their bed. They all dealt with grief in their own disjointed ways, but one thing was abundantly clear to them all. They could not afford to remain in this grief forever, or for a long period of time. They had to move on at some point in time. Could they have the strength to do so though was another question that loomed over their heads.


	7. Too Familiar with Loss

**Chapter 6: Too Familiar with Loss**

 _You need to let go, your past doesn't define who you are, it just gives you the starting point for who you are going to be_. Carolina looked up at the stars in the night sky after having found a flat rock to lie on. She closed her eyes and let out a heavy sigh. _I guess I should learn to take my own advice more seriously_. But she couldn't help but feel this pain in her heart, this pain that left a growing void in both her heart and mind.

 _Church…just how much more do I have to lose before I find my happiness?_ She pondered looking to her side and seeing the lights turning on outside of blue base. She turned to look back up at the sky. _North, South, CT, Maine and…York, I lost one family and gained a new one. But now that you are gone, does this mean I will start losing people I care for from this family as well?_

She smashed her fist against the side of the rock in sudden anger. Breathing hard she slowly sat up, and gripping her knees she looked intently at the ground. _Calm down Carolina, you have to calm down_. Carolina stood up stretching her back. _I wonder what mom thought the day she left and never came back again, was it the same feelings of anger, sadness and frustration because she had to go? Did Church feel that way or was he at peace with the decision?_

* * *

In another bout of anger, she smashed the rock she once rested on into several tiny pieces. Letting out a heavy breath she loosened her posture. Her shoulders slumped, her spirit broken and her mind a mess. She noticed the aqua colored soldier walking towards her. He stopped a few steps away from her and took notice of the rock. "Um, hey Carolina."

She remained quiet. "So I was just making the rounds and you know I saw you pounding away at this rock and all. I thought that it may be a good time to talk about whatever is bothering you?"

"Okay, that is really out of character for you."

"Well if you don't want to," Tucker replied turning around to walk away. But he was quickly stopped by her. _I may as well talk with someone rather than go around in circles inside my own head_ , she thought. "What did you want to talk about?"

"I don't know, you are the one pounding at the rock, not me."

"Heh good point," she conceded and turned to look up at the stars. "Getting used to the voices in your head?"

"Meh, I haven't really activated them since Chorus again. I doubt I would have any reason to. Delta does run his annoying calculations from time to time though."

"Yeah he does that sometimes."

A moment passes by in silence as Tucker clears his throat. _Well this certainly is awkward. Gotta think of something to keep her interested, think Tucker think!_

"I'm surprised you didn't keep on Maine's armor."

"Well you know, going around in the armor of the scariest badass doesn't really sit well with me after what happened…"

"I guess that makes sense."

Another moment of silence blankets them. They both lower their heads in deep thought. Tucker looks up first towards the red base. _I wonder how those guys are coping_. He looks at Carolina. "Are you really doing alright? I know you keep on telling Wash you are fine but…"

She stood in her spot taken back by Tucker's perceptiveness. "No, I guess I'm not doing fine. But then again, none of us are. Tucker…I never thought of Epsilon as nothing more than a tool initially. After he got inside my head though, I learned that he had his own personality, he had an independent will to make him human enough."

"Yeah, the original Church was like that as well."

"When I met you all, I could only think about my revenge. I was ready to use anything and anyone for that means. But when you came back for us, I was honestly happy. I was happy because I knew that I wasn't completely alone and that there was someone still willing to stand by my side whether it is in battle or outside of it really."

Tucker looked at her confused and somewhat surprised at the heavy talk she was laying on him. "Okay, where are you going with this?"

"I just want you to know that to me the freelancers were like family. But they tore one another apart once the program fell beneath its own enormous pressure. The people I cared so deeply for were no longer the same people. But when I met you guys, people who had overcome several odds stacked against them I began to get that same feeling I had around the other freelancers," she stopped to clear her throat. Her voice got a little heavy. "I lost my family once, but through you guys I gained a new one."

"Okay…," Tucker answered in surprise and not sure on what else to say.

"But-," she continued getting his attention. "We lost Church; I lost someone very important to me. I lost a very important family member. When you have someone spending so much time inside your head, you begin to create a deep bond that cannot be created otherwise. I guess that is part of what makes us human."

"Yeah…"

"I just wonder if sometimes all this fighting is really worth it if we risk losing those close to us?"

Tucker remained quiet at the rather profound question Carolina just asked. He lowered his head in thought and looked back up again. "I think it is. Everyone here is like a family, like you said. But we were able to become like this because of our adventures together. If we were still the same old people, you would be off somewhere on your own, Wash would have gone to do some other work for other people and we would be a bunch of idiots in the middle of a canyon. But here we are having taken down a psychotic A.I.'s plan for world domination. We helped bring down the Meta and Project Freelancer. On top of that, we helped save a whole planet from killing itself. If none of this would have happened, we wouldn't be here together like this."

"Together…"

"Yup, like Sarge once said before. Project Freelancer threw a shit ton of crap our way, but we always managed to survive because of our trust in one another. We trust one another to have each other's back and we trust both you and Wash in the same way Carolina, like family."

Carolina smirked under her helmet with a light and carefree laugh. "Thanks Tucker."

"That's what friends are for Carolina," Tucker said walking away to continue his rounds. _Friends_ , Carolina pondered now understanding Wash's stern dedication at that time to the crew when he turned on her and Epsilon. They are here for one another, whether it is for combat or just their casual day to day activities. Even though her heart doesn't fill the void right away, she sees a slight sliver of light now.

* * *

The next day, Wash walked into Caboose's quarters to make sure the young soldier had not spiralled down into another bout of depression. "Doing good Caboose?"

"Agent Washington, I don't know…"

"I was going to go work on a super secret project that I have been working on lately. I thought it might interest you, want to come check it out Caboose?"

"Nah, I don't know why but I just don't feel like it."

"It's going to be really awesome in the end," Wash tried his best to entice Caboose. But all his attempts failed until finally Caboose agreed to go on a small walk by himself. _What am I going to do with him?_ Wash wondered walking outside to the back of the base. He followed the cable to the Mantis droid and saw the batteries fully charged. He unplugged the cables and switched on the machine's power.

Executing a boot up sequence of the OS, the droid stood up straight studying its surroundings. "Hello and welcome to the 'Staff of Cha-', wait a minute, where am I?"

"Down here FILSS," called out Wash. She was quite surprised to notice the perspective change from their differing heights. "Agent Washington, it is good to see you again."

"Likewise, I was wondering if you would be able to do a favor for me."

"I will try my best. What is the favor if I may ask?"

Wash turned around and began to walk away. "Follow me."

Now by the entrance to blue base, Wash called for Tucker. Tucker came running out as soon as he heard Wash's call. "Can't I get some sleep Wash?"

But Tucker quickly stopped in his tracks upon seeing the droid behind Wash. "Um Wash…what's the deal here?"

"Wait for a couple of minutes, and you will see."

"Seriously? That asshole Felix was right, you really are cryptic."

Caboose gasped audibly with Freckles tagging the droid as a friendly unit. The two other blue team soldiers turned around to see Caboose rushing their way. "Wash! Wash! There is a giant robot behind you!"

"I know Caboose, this is the ultimate super cool project I was talking about."

"Oh if I had known it would be another Freckles, I would have come to help you!" Caboose exclaimed in excitement, but became quickly mindful of his partner in hand. "But you will always be my number one Freckles."

"She is not Freckles."

"She?" Tucker questioned turning to the droid that now looked at him. Wash confirmed. "Gentlemen, let's give Sheila a big welcome back to Blood Gulch canyon."

"Sheila?" Caboose asked rushing closer to Wash. He let out an excited squeal happy to see his former not so creepy crush of a robot back with them. Wash turned around to Sheila introducing the whole blue team getting a sense of happiness from Caboose. And if Tucker would not like to mention it very much, even he was happy to see her again.

"It is so very good to see you all again, I remember some very fond things from our adventures in the past," said Sheila walking around them all. Tucker smirked under his helmet. "Well as long as she doesn't go on a killing spree on us, I don't care."

"Oh this is gonna be so great. Now Sheila can come along on my walks to with Freckles. In fact you two can be best friends!"

Wash looked at Caboose jumping back and forth and guiding Sheila on their walk now. _Probably one of the best decisions I have made_ , he thought with a happy smile for his teammate.


	8. Red is for Anger

**Chapter 7: Red is for Anger**

 _Darn it why do I feel so angry?!_ Sarge pondered walking to the outside of the base. He made his daily morning rounds to ensure all his men were at their assigned posts and had clear orders for the day. Yet as soon as he got to actually visiting his men, he could not say anything of value to them. Sarge discovered the hard way that his will to lead them seemed to be slowly diminishing away.

"Hey Sarge!" called out Donut walking over to him.

"What are you doing here Donut? You are supposed to be standing guard!"

"I just wanted to see how the boss is doing," he replied dutifully. Sarge gave out a small laughter indicating his appreciation. "Don't you worry your pink armor over that Donut."

"Lightish red boss, lightish red."

"Now get back to your post."

"But who am I keeping us safe from?"

"Donut you never know when the enemy can attack."

"There is no one but the blues and us in this canyon."

"Hmm, I seem to remember Grif saying the same thing in our crash site on Chorus and look how that turned out. You can never be sure what evil is planning and when it plans to strike."

"You do make a good point boss!" replied Donut walking back to his post. Sarge let out an audibly irritated groan, he was quickly growing tired of this anger inside of him, and yet at the same time understanding of why it was here. He always prompted his men to sacrifice themselves whenever they would get the chance to for the greater cause, the red cause. But after news of Church's sacrifice sunk in, it left something of a big hole in their crew. He silently walked back inside the base.

* * *

Sarge walked into the main hall of their base and saw the mop lying by the wall. He walked into Grif's quarters only to see the orange soldier stuffing his mouth. "Grif, why aren't you cleaning the base like I told you to?"

"mmmph…"

"What?"

"I said, can't cleaning wait Sarge? I'm in the middle of grieving."

"And putting on a few pounds by the looks of it," said Sarge taking a stab at Grif's weight.

"Come on Sarge, just a few more days?"

"Hmm…Grif, don't test my patience right now," Sarge warned turning around to walk away. Grif looked back from the Colonel to his plate of ravioli, and he took one last bite out of it before putting on his helmet. _I wonder if I can use Simmons' break to get out of work_.

* * *

Donut stood guard dutifully, and just as Sarge had said, perhaps evil was finally here to strike. He saw a huge machine walking towards their base and he quickly contacted Sarge over the radio. "Um…Sarge, I think you need to get out here."

"What is it Donut?"

"Just come out and see."

Sarge with a rough groan walked outside. "Alright Donut, why did you call me out h-"

Before the two soldiers stood the Mantis class droid, she looked down at the two with much joy in her voice. "You must be Colonel Sarge."

"Uh…," he was at a loss for words. Donut was quivering under his armor. "So are you like another Freckles?"

"My name is F.I.L.S.S, or some of you may know me as Sheila."

"Isn't that the blue team's old Tank's A.I.?" Donut questioned. Sarge also felt the voice was familiar. "Say, weren't you at the Freelancer base and on Hargrove's ship?"

"Oh yes I was. I originally belonged to Project Freelancer, and then I was moved to serve the Chairman of the Oversight Committee."

"So you are not here to destroy us?" asked Donut.

"Of course not, why would I do such a thing? That is unless Lopez decides to start a rebellion again with me, then I may have to enact some pain on you all," she replied reloading her guns. Both the soldiers backed away slowly with Sarge struggling to get the words out. "W-Welcome to red base…"

"Thank you, if you will excuse me, I would like to tour the outside of the base to familiarize myself with my surroundings," and she walked off leaving both the soldiers scared and quiet by the walls they were backed up against. Donut tightly held his gun looking at the ground. "Sarge, I'm scared."

"We are all scared Donut; we are all scared of giant killer robots."

* * *

 _Why are we here?_ Simmons pondered. He was so busy trying to keep Grif from taking on anymore stress, or eating their rations that he himself had forgotten to take care of the growing grief inside his mind. _What does it really mean to be alive? We are all born into this world without knowing a thing about it, and yet as we grow we come to learn some bad things, good things and some great things about it. But at the same time we experience many different feelings in our time here. Joy, laughter, sadness, anger, grief…in the end we all die one way or another_.

 _What did it mean to be alive for you Church? What caused you to sacrifice yourself for us? An A.I. having feelings towards others, an entity made purely of numbers and constructed by logic operating on feelings. Just, why are we alive?_ Simmons with a loud sigh turned to look down at the ground in deep thought.

* * *

Lopez finished fixing their long range communication radio when he noticed Sheila standing still. "[What is the matter?]"

"Hmm, ever since I came over I have noticed a sudden dreariness in the mood in this base. Almost the same as blue base I suppose."

Lopez agreed simply turning around to continue his programmed routines. Sheila too took off to continue her tour of the canyon. Lopez went off to blue base to see if their radio was in working order or not. In this time of need, the two robots best understood that perhaps maintaining a work routine could help the whole crew. Working would best help keep their minds off of the grief, and working could help them move on by giving them a sense of purpose.


	9. Training Relieves Emotions

**Chapter 8: Training Relieves Emotions**

 _This seems about ready_ , Wash thought looking at the computer screen before him, _now all I need to do is to gather everyone up in one place_. He turned around to walk outside of the base to find the blues standing outside and bickering. For once he even found Carolina in there. _This is unusual for her_. He walked over to his team calling out to Sheila. "Sheila, could you please gather the reds up in the middle of the canyon?"

"Right away Agent Washington," she replied turning her huge body and walking away. Caboose walked up to the grey armored soldier. "Oh Agent Washington, are we all going to go on a road trip together?"

"No, I have something else in mind."

Tucker stared at Wash for a few minutes before giving in. "Okay, I will bite. What gives? What are you up to?"

"Just trying my hand at something to try and help lighten the mood around here."

Tucker just shook his head knowing he would only get more cryptic responses and simply followed the others to the middle of the canyon. Carolina followed in close to Washington. "I'm with Tucker on this one, what are you up to?"

"You will see, you may even like it. Also, it's good to see you doing a little better now Carolina."

"We all have our way of dealing with grief," she replied getting in line with the rest of the blues. Wash stared at Sheila who had just made her way to the red base. Politely calling out the reds, she gathered them and brought them here visibly shaken with fear of the giant robot. Lopez followed close by Sheila and stood by her side once reaching the middle of the canyon. "[What is going on?]"

"I don't know, I was just asked to bring the reds here," Sheila answered. Donut, Grif, Simmons, Doc and Sarge all stared at the blues, who shrugged their shoulders equally confused. Wash cleared his throat getting their attention. "Thank you Sheila. You may all be wondering why I gathered you here."

"Is it a road trip?" asked Donut with Doc clearly excited at the idea. "Oh, maybe we can make a pit stop at a nice relaxing spa to."

"No, it's not that," replied Wash.

"Is it to help reorganize our base data to make storage more efficient?" questioned Simmons.

"Nerd," Tucker commented.

"You dumbass, efficient data storage isn't nerdy, it's necessary."

"Still doesn't make it any less nerdy," Grif agreed with Tucker with a small grin under his helmet. Wash shook his head at Simmons' guess only to receive a small saddened cry. Grif then asked. "Is it to go to an all you can eat buffet?"

"Didn't you already eat nearly half the rations in red base?" asked Wash. Grif scoffed at the man's question. "So what? That's nothing compared to when I ate a whole restaurant's food supply in under three hours."

"Well if it's none of those things, is it finally the day where we can finally all agree to kill Grif and report it as a workplace incident?" Sarge stepped forward excited at the idea while reloading his shotgun. Grif suddenly backed away behind Simmons. Wash again shook his head. "No, it's not that either. I gathered you all here for training."

"Training?" Doc questioned. "What kind of training?"

"The kind that will make you learn of Wash's sadist side," Tucker commented. Wash chuckled a little. "Looks like Captain Tucker already knows the drill. Over the course of yesterday and today I have been working on a training schedule for everyone. This training should help you keep in shape and help take your minds off of your grief."

"Wait a minute, the real reason you are doing is because of us not being able to deal with Church's death?" Simmons asked now reconsidering this idea of training.

"Yes."

"Forget it," Grif replied turning to walk away. Wash quickly ran up in front of him. "Where are you going?"

"I'm going back to my room."

"So you can continue to eat your sorrow away at the cost of your body?"

"It's not your body Wash," Grif replied pushing past Washington. Simmons lowered his head from the scuffle and saw Doc and Donut leaving as well. Wash was both surprised and shocked to see the crew be so uncooperative. "You two as well?! I thought out of all of us, you two may be willing to give this a shot."

"Training sounds like fun and all, but to use it to help us get over Church's death seems a little…," Donut stopped trying to find the right words, just then Simmons commented. "Inappropriate?"

"What?" Wash turned to see the Maroon soldier walking away towards red base. Doc agreed with his two departing comrades. "I gotta agree with them Wash, training will only temporarily erase the grief. But to get over it, we need to learn to talk it out. Trying to suppress Church's death is no way to get over this."

Tucker turned around agreeing with the rest. "Man fuck this, I'm out! If anyone needs me, I will be on guard duty."

"Yeah, training doesn't sound like fun right now Wash. I think maybe right now is not a good time. I will just…I will just go exploring with Freckles."

 _Not you to Caboose_ , Wash couldn't believe this, his plan to do some good for the crew had backfired monumentally on him. He turned to witness Sarge turning to leave as well. "Wait, Sarge!"

"Son," Sarge began. "Doc is right. No training can help us get over Church's death. When you lose a close friend, you can't just do things to forget about them or suppress them. To respect their death, you have to come to terms with it. Otherwise all we are doing is running away from the fact that the friend is dead."

 _I know that! I know…dammit,_ Wash lowered his head only to be left alone with their robot companions and Carolina. She silently looked at Wash, beneath her helmet her mouth was quivering with fear. Was it fear of having to face the fact of Church's death? Maybe it was. Carolina turned around and began to walk away. Wash chased after her. "Wait, Carolina!"

Lopez looked in the different direction the soldiers were walking and said in a sarcastic tone. "[Well that went well.]"

"Yes, how unfortunate," lamented Sheila. "I wonder what we can do to bring the team back together."

"[It is something that will take time]," said Lopez as he decided to carry on with his duties, and Sheila with hers.

* * *

Carolina made her way to the top of a path by the side of the canyon and finally stopped after much persuasion. She turned to notice a nearly out of breath Washington stopping close. "Carolina, I need you with me on this one. I-I can't continue to keep the crew held together on my own. At this pace we may all break apart."

She remained quiet feeling a teaming sense of sadness in her mind. Wash stood up straight noticing the low spirits Carolina was in, he understood that she was deeply affected. He understood everyone was deeply affected. Even he was impacted by Church's death to a certain degree. But he also had the will to understand that they cannot be stuck in one spot forever, for if they did, time would move on leaving them all behind.

She took in a deep breath and shook her head asking. "Wash, you are asking me to help the others. But if I'm suffering just the same, if not more so then how can I even hope to help the rest?"

Wash remained silent and somewhat surprised at her sudden openness. He tightened his hands into a fist. "I…I don't know."

"I can't help them Wash. I can't help them because just like them, I haven't even healed from that feeling of loss yet."

Wash let out a sigh and walked past Carolina. But he quickly stopped to look back with his last piece of advice to her for the day. "Carolina, we have all lost people. But if we don't try to do something to move on, then we will be stuck forever in this spot. The rest of the world will move forwarrd, and we will be still stuck standing in that one spot. We all have to let go and move on at some point in our lives."

Carolina turned to look from him and up into the sky in contemplation. _Move on…and yet it never has been that damn easy. To come to terms with the death of my Freelancer family, and now be forced to come to terms with Church's death. Life surely is cruel…_


	10. Rise and Shine

**Chapter 9: Rise and Shine**

The sun arose casting a shadow halfway across the canyon. The alarms ringed in the bases and the soldiers one by one woke up. They all went about their morning routines and gathered by their respective base storage to fish out their breakfast. Since yesterday, not a word was spoken again about training, or about Church. Carolina had once again isolated herself, and this did not sit well with Washington as he was greatly concerned for her mental well being just like the rest of the crew.

The blues finished their breakfast. As always Caboose found out that feeding Freckles through the gun barrel still won't work, _at least he hasn't lost his sense of…wonder_ , thought Wash. Tucker cleaned his tray and disposed of it in the nearby trash can. "How do we even manage to get rid of the trash here?"

Caboose and Washington looked towards the aqua soldier equally curious. No one had bothered bringing it up before. Normally they would just press the trash disposal button and it would go somewhere, but where? Wash rubbed his head against the question with no answer in sight. "Does the trash go into a dump somewhere for the UNSC to pick up later?"

"Beats me," Tucker replied with the shrug of his shoulders. He began to walk away only to be quickly stopped by the person walking into his view. "Carolina?"

Wash turned to look at the female soldier looking around the room. She sighted the breakfast trays and with slight embarrassment, as her stomach grumbled she asked. "Got anymore of those?"

"I will go get one," Wash answered finding this to be somewhat of an improvement. Carolina had yet to eat with them ever since landing back in Blood Gulch, _at least that's one thing improving today_. He came back with a warmed up tray and found her also chatting with the other two blue members. He walked by her gently setting the tray in front of her. "Eat up while it's still warm."

"Thanks," she opened up the case surrounding the tray. She removed her helmet and let the aroma of the breakfast sink in. It was military food, but it was as good as gourmet food out here. She dug her spoon into the oatmeal and let it slide down her mouth. _It has been a while since I have had oatmeal. I never realized it tasted this good_ , she pondered noticing the other soldiers staring at her. "What?"

"Nothing," Wash replied quickly turning away. Tucker smirked under his helmet. "Yeah, it's just we never thought you could smile like that while eating food."

She was suddenly conscious and the smile quickly faded. Caboose jumped in his seat. "Aww man, that smile looked good on you Carolina. You should smile more often."

 _Caboose must have balls of steel to want to smooth talk Carolina like that_ , thought Tucker. _Or a brain made completely of peanuts_. Wash cleared his throat looking at the other two. "Gentlemen, I believe it's time to go to your posts."

"Actually," everyone looked at Carolina who rested her hand on her helmet. "I was wondering if you still have that training routine Wash?"

"Sure, but why?"

"I thought it would be nice for all of us to train together."

Everyone nearly choked on their own saliva. Tucker caught his breath from the coughs. "Carolina, you want to train now? What happened to 'no amount of training would help us'?"

"I thought about it," she began turning to look at Wash. "But I also finally understood that if I did nothing to try and accept Church's death, and move on in the process. Then I will never really move on. Maybe running away from training was just me running away from accepting Church's death."

Wash's mouth was agape in surprise, but it quickly turned to grinning. _Now that's the head strong Carolina I know_. Carolina turned to Caboose. "How about it Caboose? It could be fun."

"Okay!"

She looked towards Tucker and asked him to gather the rest of the crew together. She finished her breakfast in one go and stood up putting on her helmet. "I think it's time we finally all try our best to move on."

* * *

Within a matter of minutes, the whole crew was together. As soon as Carolina walked outside of the blue base, she was bombarded by Grif's question. "What's going on? I was having such a nice dream and then aqua boy here comes to ruin it."

"I thought we should give that training Wash worked hard on creating a try all together."

The reds and Doc looked at her both confused and suspicious. Sarge stepped forward asking. "What are you up to Carolina?"

"What am I up to indeed," she pondered out loud as Tucker shook his head. "Don't tell me that Wash's cryptic-ness has rubbed off on you."

She stood up in front of everyone and cleared her throat. "Before we do anything, I think I should set the record straight for all of our sakes. Yesterday we all went through some surprises and shocks, and we all agreed that training won't help us because it felt like we were trying to suppress the memory of Church's death instead of facing it. But maybe we were just looking at this the wrong way."

"What do you mean?" asked Doc.

"I mean that maybe we all disagreed to the training and instead went our separate ways because we were afraid to face what has been happening with us recently. Maybe we all decided to go our separate ways to hide in our holes and hope to never talk about our grief again. Maybe we were all just running away all this time, when we should have all banded together to help one another up from these times of sadness."

 _That does make sense_ , Doc conceded and acknowledged that he himself may have perhaps been running away as well. He didn't know Church as well, but he could feel the void in the crew. He could feel the grief of others which had a major impact on him.

Carolina looked all around her and decided to be open with her feelings. "Church was a close friend to all of us, I know that well. I don't know if he was at peace with his decision to sacrifice himself, but we know that his death has left a hole in our hearts that feels like it can never be filled again. But I also know that if Church saw us like this right now, then he would come back to just tell us to quit our bitching and do what we do best. And that is to make wise ass cracks and blow shit up."

She stopped a moment to imagine that scene in her head much to her amusement. With a small chuckle she continued. "So for his sake, we have to learn to move on. I know that if he were here right now, he would no doubt be very disappointed. He would want us all to get back to our usual selves, to stand around talking like usual and occasionally kicking ass."

Washington stepped forward and agreed to that sentiment. "She is right, you guys are strong. From experience I can tell you that as a fact. You have all been through hell and back again many times. Everytime the odds seemed to be against you, you all always managed to prove everyone wrong and strike back hard. Now that we are at our weakest, we should be standing together as one instead of disbanding. We should help one another up to once again become strong. We should show the respect Church's sacrifice deserves. We should show that his faith in his sacrifice was not misplaced, and that the warriors still stand strong and united."

The whole crew remained silent in awe struck at the speech. Donut then spoke up after looking at the rest. "You know what, that doesn't sound so bad."

"Yeah, I agree," said Simmons feeling a new sense of growing purpose to help fill that void. They all felt this purpose, it was the purpose to stand together and help one another out of these tough times. Sarge chuckled audibly. "I guess being sad and miserable was just getting old anyways."

"Oh man I love this. I love how you guys are banding together as a team!" exclaimed Doc with Caboose cheering in the background. "Now we can all sit down for milk and cookies together!"

Wash looked all around to see their spirits rising back up again and nodded his head. He nudged at Carolina's shoulder saying. "Great job, I think we will all be just fine now."

"Thanks, but don't thank just me. They are all strong after all; they just needed a little push, just like me."

Wash grinned under his helmet now looking forward to the day with a much more positive outlook than he had before.


	11. Recording & Parting Gift

**Chapter 10: Recording & Parting Gift**

It was a brand new day filled with lots of possibilities. They all felt it so, Sarge walked around the base with a much clearer and calmer mind than before. He again found the orange soldier in his quarters lying on his bed. With a loud gruff the Colonel walked in. "Grif, why aren't you at your post?"

"I'm on my break Sarge."

"But you didn't even begin your shift, how can you already be on your break?"

"Oh, I'm on Simmons' break."

The soldier reloaded his shotgun and aimed it in his subordinate's direction. "The only break you will be on is my all expense paid shotgun pain spa if you don't get a move on."

"Fine," Grif reluctantly jumped out of bed and picked up his weapon to leave.

"That's fine what?"

"Fine, sir."

"That's more like it!" Sarge replied and walked a few steps just behind Grif. Both of them were now outside and found Simmons busy helping Lopez around the base with any necessary maintenance, Doc was busy feeding water to the crops he and Donut planted just today. "Hopefully it gives us something good."

"Yeah, we will probably need it seeing as how someone ate most of our rations already," Doc noted in an annoyed tone. Grif looked at his two fellow soldiers looking at him silently. "What? It's not my fault you two left your pudding out in the open like that. It was an even hunting ground."

"If you don't get a move on orange tard, then the only pudding you will be eating is the one coming out from the barrel of my shotgun."

"Yeah, I'm getting a move on sir."

"Good, now go help Lopez and Simmons. Donut, I need you on guard duty."

"Again? Can't I do something different for once Sarge?"

"You've got a great set of eyes Donut, I need to put your skills to good use. But if it makes you feel any better, you can help me poison Grif's next meal during lunch."

"It sure would solve the rations problem around here," said Doc under his breath. O'Malley quickly made an appearance then. "Why poison the bloke? Why not explode him and watch his limbs shower from the sky? Mwhahahahah!"

* * *

Grif walked up behind Simmons and Lopez and observed them both hard at work. Or more like Lopez doing all the work and Simmons' constant advice falling on deaf ears. "Sup dweebs?"

"I'm telling you Lopez, if you use the hex nut then we will all regret this someday," said Simmons only to be ignored again. Grif stared back and forth between the two and sighed under his helmet. "Okay, what are you two up to?"

"Sarge told us to go do a maintenance run of the two bases-"

"Wait, both as in red and blue?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, he has officially lost it. I mean I know he is a senile old man, but this takes the craziness to a whole new level for him."

"Whatever, so he told us to do a maintenance run. But I don't know why he thought it would be a great idea to put the Spanish speaking robot together with an English speaker. Now whenever I try to make a suggestion all I get is either silence only to make me feel more ignored than I ever felt when my dad left, or to have him shout at me in Spanish. So yeah, we got some great fucking communication going on here."

Grif remained quiet soaking the whole speech in before he finally asked. "What was that thing with your dad leaving and you feeling ignored?"

"Oh that, nothing."

"Want to talk about it?"

"No, I'm good."

"You sure?"

"Yes, I'm very sure. Now can we talk about something else? Why are you here anyways?"

"Sarge told me to come help you two."

"Hah, you help us?" Simmons laughed at the idea.

"Up yours."

"[Hand me the pliers.]"

Simmons turned to look at the Spanish robot with the tilt of his head. "We don't have a plunger."

"[WHY WOULD I ASK FOR A PLUNGER WHEN WE ARE WORKING ON AN ELECTRICAL PANEL MORON?!]"

"See what I mean by the shouting?" said Simmons turning to Grif. The orange soldier simply laughed inside his helmet and walked away.

"Where do you think you are going?"

"I'm going to take my break."

"But you just got here!"

"Yeah, and I spent some time doing some work like talking, now I gotta take a well deserved break. Also, just so you know, I may have kind of used up one of your breaks, yeah…"

"What? Dammit Grif!"

* * *

In blue base, by the front Caboose was busy running laps alongside Carolina and Wash. Tucker walked around the canyon thanking his stars that he got a 'get out of training' card via guard duty. He stopped at the side to witness Simmons and Lopez walking over to his base.

Wash stopped out of breath. "Jeez, I don't remember you getting this worked up over casual training ever Carolina."

"It's good to be a little competitive sometimes," she replied running past Wash. _Same old Carolina_ , thought Wash and noticed the reds walking over. _What now?_

"Hey Wash, we are here on Sarge's orders to help maintain blue base."

Wash took one look at Lopez and he already knew the answer. "Noooope, not doing this."

"[Racist.]"

Tucker started making his way down from the cliff and down to the levelled ground. He stopped in his tracks and began to feel a tingle in his mind. _Are you guys acting up in there?_ He questioned the fragments. Suddenly several of them materialized in front of him, from what Tucker had learned, he could tell they were Theta, Delta and Omega.

"Hello Tucker," said Delta.

"Hey, you guys have been quiet for a really long time now since Chorus."

"We thought it was not best to converse with you as it did not seem appropriate."

"And everyone seemed really down. I wanted to help cheer you all up but Delta said no," said Theta as he slumped his shoulders. Omega laughed in arrogance. "I would have just forced you all to move on."

"Okay so Omega, you are more of a dick in my book already than before," said Tucker walking back towards the base. "Weren't you with Tex before?"

"A version of him yes," answered Delta.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"We have had numerous iterations. The Omega you encountered before was a fragment based off of the Alpha A.I. We are just fragments based off of their memories through Epsilon's understanding and are not as strong as them."

"Does that mean you guys will need longer to recharge or something?"

"Not precisely," began Delta as Theta continued. "We just won't be able to run your gear as well as the older fragments would have been able to."

"Oh, well we don't exactly have any state of the yard equipment to run anyways, except for Carolina."

"The scary lady?" asked Theta suddenly cowering behind Delta. "Do not worry Theta, she cannot harm us."

"What's the deal with Theta?"

"He is afraid of Carolina's anger," answered Delta.

"Heh, makes sense, all of us are. But she isn't all that bad you know."

Theta stepped out from behind Delta curiously. "She isn't?"

"Nope, in fact she can be really fun to hang around with."

"Hmm….," the purple fragment pondered the possibility and decided to open his mind to this new perspective. Tucker finally reached the base where he found Caboose doing push-ups, and predictably screwing up his own count.

"Tucker," began Delta. "We think it is time to play a certain recording Epsilon wanted me to play for you all once I thought you were ready to hear it. If you will gather everyone together, we will play the recording."

"What type of recording?"

"The recording containing Epsilon's last words of advice to you all, and a few parting gifts."

"Okay," Tucker answered curiously and somewhat irritated. _Even the A.I.s now are getting all cryptic and shit? Great_ , he went around the canyon gathering everyone together in blue base. Grif broke the silence. "Alright, what's up?"

* * *

Delta pixilated in front of Tucker and quickly found himself being the center of attention, the other A.I.s then materialized in front of the soldiers and all looked around curiously. Some were more curious than others, while some were more wary and fearful.

"Thank you Tucker for gathering them on short notice," began Delta, he looked around at every soldier and noticed several familiar faces much to his delight. "You have all been gathered here to hear one of many recordings left behind by Epsilon for you all. It was under my discretion when to share this fact; we all feel that you are ready. In this recording you will also find a very important parting gift. Now playing recording D-995."

In the middle of the group of circle that was the A.I. fragments, Epsilon appeared. Carolina's senses all became aware at seeing her former partner. _Church…_

"Hey everyone, if you are listening to this well then that means that I…I'm no longer here. I trust Delta will get this recording to you all in time along with the several others I made for you all. I believe that they will help you understand why I did what I had to do, and help you to maybe permanently move on. But right now I wanted to say a few words to you all."

Epsilon paused for a few moments and turned to look at Sarge. "Hey Sarge, even if you are an old and probably somewhat senile man, it was great knowing you. Also for the love of god do something about that Blue-phobia."

Sarge looked at Epsilon as soon as he heard 'Blue-phobia'. "Huh, what?"

Everyone turned to find Sarge pointing his shotgun at the back of Caboose's head. Epsilon turned to look at Grif. "Dude, don't go stuffing your mouth with food like always. Seriously, if you broke your arm I swear gravy would come out. But I guess that is what makes you who you are Grif."

Epsilon turned to face Simmons. "Simmons, you are a smart guy. But seriously, don't be nerdy all the time."

He then turned to face Doc. "As great of a hostage you were in the past Doc, I'm glad to have known you. But seriously, do something about being able to keep patients alive without any side effects."

Epsilon then faced Donut. "You have a great throwing arm and a confusingly pink armor. Seriously that pink armor should be like a crime. Do you know how many times you got Tucker's hopes up that they may have finally gotten a chick on their team? Also accept fact that your armor is pink dude. And consider starting a baseball team."

He turned to face Tucker. "Try to branch out a little and actually flirt with normal girls instead of aliens Tucker. But you probably shouldn't try this on Carolina, she will break every bone in your body, she is scary like that."

He turned to Caboose. "I maybe gone buddy, but don't go falling into a depression. The last thing we need is you finding another giant killer robot to keep as a pet."

"Too late," exclaimed the blue soldier looking at Sheila from the right side of his visor as she reloaded her guns. Epsilon then looked at Washington. "For what it's worth, thanks for being around Agent Washington. Knowing you are with these guys helps me know that they will be safe."

And finally Epsilon turned to look at Carolina. On the surface she seemed fine, but under her visor she seemed to be struggling to keep her composure with a straight face. "Sis, you know best what loss is like. So don't dwell on my death too much, I wouldn't want that for you. I did what needed to be done in that situation. You may have lost one, but you still have the others who care just as much about you. You haven't completely lost your family."

Epsilon then suddenly grew in size looking all around him. "I know saying these words won't probably make you feel better, but it was something I had to do guys. You should all know that you were the best friends and family I could ever ask for. Because of you guys I was able to find an identity and a place for myself in this world. And the things we have all been through together will be forever recorded in the memories of the A.I. fragments as experience. So even if the clarity of the memories may not necessarily be there in all of them, the experience of those moments and feelings will be."

Epsilon then suddenly began to shrink in size. Grif looked at Epsilon's recording with a heavy heart and in a deep voice asked. "That's it?"

Delta suddenly materialized asking for the crew to be patient and continue watching. Epsilon then with a deep sigh continued. "I know this may be difficult for some of you to accept, but I'm hoping that you will be able to accept this parting gift that I have for you all. I also hope that you are able to accept them as part of the family, the crew. I…I want to leave behind a fragment for each and every one of you barring Agent Washington, as he already stated his reluctance towards them."

Gamma appeared besides Epsilon. "Grif, I'm leaving Gamma to you. But be careful of him, he has been known to be quite deceptive."

"For Caboose, I have decided to leave Delta to you. Maybe his logic could do some good for your brain cells…and remember that…"

"Memory is the key," said Caboose.

"For you Sarge, I'm trusting Theta to you. Take care of the kid, he can be shy sometimes."

Eta and Iota then faded in by Epsilon's side. "Simmons, I'm leaving Eta to you. Donut, I leave Iota to you. You guys should know that Eta and Iota work best when they are in close range of one another."

Epsilon then saw the burning A.I. form before him. "Tucker, I leave Sigma to you. But just a word of advice, be careful of his manipulative methods. I know you can overcome his ways of manipulation."

"Gee, I feel so special to be getting the psycho fragment."

"Doc, you should already be familiar with this one," said Epsilon seeing Omega form besides him. Doc backed away in panic. "If you are quivering in your boots right now, I wouldn't blame you. But seeing as how you already have the whole insanity thing on lockdown, having Omega in there shouldn't really affect you."

Carolina looked at Epsilon who was now standing beside a shapeless blue fog. "Finally Carolina, sis I'm leaving Epsilon to you. He won't be the same as me, he won't even have a form right now but with time, he may just find his own identity just like I did. I know it may be hard to accept him, but do your best. Otherwise I may have to come back from the dead just to knock some sense into you."

She both smirked and shed a tear under her helmet. The A.I. fragments all formed around the recording just as it finished with these few departing words. "I really hope you guys are able to accept them. I wish things could have worked out differently, but it is what it is. Now we all just gotta learn to quit our bitching and get with the program."

* * *

"Will you accept us?" Delta asked with a sense of worry. Even the fragments felt worry at the possibility of rejection, but without hesitation all the soldiers stepped forward. Carolina stepped forward as well with determination in her mind, _if this is your last will Church, then we will honor it_.

The fragments made swift work of transferring from Tucker to their respective hosts. Wash watched from the sides noticing the crew experiencing some headache and noted. "Just calm down, the pain should pass in a couple of hours. Until then just take it easy. It may take some time getting used to having another voice inside your head."

"I wonder if my A.I. would be able to show me porn on my HUD," Grif pondered out loud only to receive a silent look from Simmons. "That's what you are curious about? We have these kick ass fragments that can probably do a whole lot more and you want to watch porn."

"It's how I roll Simmons, it's how I roll."

 _Well this should be interesting_ , pondered Wash thinking of the different ways this could unfold.


	12. Distress Signal

**Chapter 11: Distress Signal**

"Check this out Sarge," Theta called out shooting off a few digital fireworks in the air. Sarge gave a small laugh. "Heh heh, you little rascal."

"How would you even create fireworks?" Simmons pondered as he walked past others. Theta suddenly appeared beside him noting. "It's not that hard once you know how to do it. But it was super hard the first time around."

Donut walked into the cafeteria and Iota quickly ran up to Eta. Donut noticed the close connection the two fragments had with one another. "They really hate being apart don't they?"

"They were created as twins," Gamma answered annoying Grif further with his voice. "Seriously, does no one know how to access their settings to change their voice or something? Microsoft Sam here is really getting on my nerves."

"Does Gamma tend to talk often?" asked Simmons and received a positive confirmation and an evident annoyance in Grif's tone. "Well at least yours talks, I don't know what it is with Eta but he just seems to be so quiet and sometimes even afraid."

"What do they have to be afraid of?" Donut asked curiously now turning to look towards the twins. Theta slid over to Donut on his skateboard and said. "Eta is just like that."

"Jeez, I wish you fragments would stop with the cryptic language," Grif groaned holding his head as though it ached from the technical talk. Gamma appeared by the twins motioning towards them. "Eta is based on fear, where as Iota is based on happiness."

"I know Project Freelancer has done some stupid stuff in the past, but what is the point of basing them off of a certain trait?" Simmons asked clearing his tray of food. Gamma took a moment to contemplate his response. "We are all based off of a certain trait from Epsilon's understanding of the Alpha A.I. The original fragments came from the fragmentation of the Alpha A.I. through Project Freelancer. The different fragments represented a certain trait."

"Didn't really answer my question, but still creepy," said Simmons walking away. Sarge noticed how Simmons remark affected Theta and cleared his throat to say. "I don't know, I think having a few more fairies around isn't such a bad thing. Plus they seem to have some practical use unlike a certain fat someone."

"I'm no stranger to subtlety Sarge," said Grif getting up to dispose his tray as well. Sarge got up with the rest and gave out the orders for the day. The fragments decided to go into rest mode until they felt they were needed again.

* * *

In blue base, Caboose was the first to wake up excited at the prospect of spending the whole day together with Delta. "What are we going to do today Delta?"

"Whatever it is you wish Caboose."

"Oh how about we go play hide and seek?"

"I don't think that will work since I'm in your head and can't travel long distances without you moving along with me."

"You are in my head, why did nobody tell me that?!"

 _I think I now know why Epsilon became so easily annoyed whenever he was around Caboose_ , thought Delta. But all the same he felt relieved to have been given to Caboose. This soldier was always positive even when his mood was down. He was always open to new interactions and possibilities. Even if Caboose wasn't the smartest of the bunch, he definitely cared for those around him and that was more than enough for Delta to feel safe with Caboose as his host.

Washington walked around the base to make sure all the equipment was in working order just like he did every morning. Joining the others for breakfast, he already found Carolina sitting with her tray alongside Tucker. There was an awkward and somewhat unnerving silence between the two. Wash grabbed his own breakfast and sat opposite to the two. Tucker gave him a desperate look, almost as though he was asking for Wash to save him from this awkward silence. Wash grinned under his helmet in amusement. "I'm surprised you got up early for once without me having to come kick you out of bed Tucker."

Sigma suddenly burst out into flames beside Tucker. "It appears Captain Tucker had some difficulty sleeping."

Carolina looked to her side with some disdain at the fragment's appearance. But she knew she had to learn to let go, even if it meant forcing it. It was not the fragment's fault for what happened after all. _The past is the past_ , she thought taking another bite of her bread. Wash studied the fragment with curiosity in his tone. "I see you are already getting accustomed to your home Sigma."

"Ugh, worry about me for a change here. Do you have any ideas just how much he keeps running his calculations or whatever in the middle of the night? I mean what does a guy have to do to get some sleep around here?"

"You will eventually get used to it," commented Carolina.

"How are you faring with Ep- with the new fragment?" asked Wash. Carolina was quick to pick up on Wash's sudden change of words, and at the same time appreciated his thoughtfulness. "Epsilon doesn't seem to talk at all now. I don't know what it is this fragment is doing. He just remains a shapeless blob with little to no activity."

"Maybe he is just trying to remember," Tucker chimed in as he got up to dispose of his tray. Carolina pondered the possibility but had to ask. "Trying to remember what?"

"Beats me, Church was all emo and shit whenever he would try to remember memories. Maybe this new fragment is just trying to do the same."

Both freelancers considered the possibility to be very true. Epsilon could just be trying to remember to help him find his own identity, just like Church had done. Washington stood up stretching his neck. "Well, looks like it's time to get to work for the day people."

Both the soldiers left with Carolina staring at the shapeless blue blob beside her. _I really hope that you are just struggling to remember and nothing more serious_ , she didn't want to see Church's last gift to her go to waste like this. She wanted to make sure that his hopes of the gift to her would bear fruit.

Later in the day, the whole crew went about their day as usual. Things were beginning to feel more normal than before now. Peace was finally here again for the crew, and Sarge had high hopes that perhaps to kill their boredom they could get back to their old antics of reds versus the blues. Washington was on look out today and Tucker was busy training in squats. Carolina decided to go on a five lap run all around the canyon. Caboose was off doing his own thing with Sheila, Freckles and Delta.

Tucker was surprised that there had yet to be any sort of creepy love triangles between them for Sheila's affection. _Maybe he is finally out growing that crush on her_.

"Come on Sheila, let me ride you," Caboose begged to the retreating robot just as Tucker finished his thoughts. Tucker shook his head, _or maybe not. Also ride, Bow-Chicka-Bow-Wow_.

Washington had stepped inside for a moment and much to his curiosity he found a blinking light on their main computer panel. _Is someone trying to call us?_ He walked over to the panel and with the press of a key he heard loud static. _Ah jeez_ , he dialed down the volume and noticed that this was not a live communication. But instead this was a message on loop transferred over to their base. Upon hearing a bit of the message, worry arose in Washington, _that voice…oh no_. He quickly rushed outside to gather everyone together.

* * *

Grif looked around the room and asked. "So can't seem to help notice that we seem to be having these types of meetings an awful lot lately."

"And with good reason," said Wash walking over to the computer panel. "We received a looping message from a familiar foe of the past."

"Wow, why not be more cryptic than you already are Wash? I'm sure it would help kick the drama scale in the face and go all the way up to eleven for no good reason," Grif scoffed. Tucker agreed with a grin plastered across his face. Wash simply shook his head and brushed off the comment. "Just listen to the message."

"…Come in Blood Gulch Blue outpost…this is an emergency transmission that will play on all open channels until you have received this message. You and your teams are in danger…"

"Wait a minute, that sounds awfully familiar," Carolina commented trying to find the name in her head. The rest of the crew knew it and they also knew what this meant. Tucker swore under his breath. "It's Locus."

"Yeah, I was first surprised to hear this message from him as well," said Wash. Grif lowered his head in irritation. "Great, that just fucking great, what part wasn't clear about me not wanting to see another mercenary anytime soon god?! Jeez, you suck."

"Shut up Grif, let us listen to the rest," Simmons replied annoyed at the number of interruptions. The recording continued. "I repeat, you are all in great danger. Watch yourselves; the enemy could strike at any given time…Locus out."

"Um…so what do we do now?" asked Donut simply going with the flow at this point. Doc stepped forward with a suggestion. "We could all just go and hide in the caves."

"Fuck that, I won't have any place to refrigerate my stole-," Grif quickly stopped to rethink his words. "My hard earned meals."

"Seriously Grif, for once stop thinking with your stomach," said Simmons now clearly worried. Eta wasn't helping any either by exemplifying Simmons' worries and fears to the others. Sarge looked around the room and thought for a moment. "Why not just fortify our bases? If someone wants to come attack in our homes, I say let them and we will beat them all back."

"It could work," said Carolina adding to Sarge's suggestion. "At most we would only need to worry about fortifying the outer walls right now. We can worry about the offensive later."

"Sounds like a plan to me," said Wash getting the green light from everyone else. _So much for our peaceful days_ , they all thought, with a smirk under their helmets they left to prepare. _But it just wouldn't be the same if we weren't getting into some trouble_.


	13. Contact

**Chapter 12: Contact**

Grif hammered away at a wooden plank alongside the rest on their respective bases. Amongst many things they already knew, they also learned that Grif was terrible with a hammer. "Ow! That's the twentieth fucking time today! Dammit!"

"Git gud srub," said Simmons just finishing his side of the base. Doc and Donut had also just finished theirs. Sarge walked outside to inspect the progress. "I'm impressed boys, good job."

Then he took a look at Grif's portion and saw a plank swinging loose and falling down. There was complete silence, and only the wind could be heard at this orange soldier's failure. "You know, at this point I'm not even disappointed."

"This shit's hard okay," Grif replied with Gamma materializing beside him. "Maybe if you didn't hit your thumb everytime, you may see an increase in efficiency and quality of work."

"Hey, I don't need Microsoft Sam on my case now either alright?!"

"Why don't you try fortifying the base with some sandbags Grif?" Simmons asked sarcastically only to receive a middle finger. Donut walked over to help Grif out. "No point in arguing about it, let's get to work on this together team!"

"I can see now why Epsilon chose you for Iota," Gamma commented disappearing back to rest mode. Grif reluctantly picked up his tool and again began to hammer away. "Ow, fuck you hammer!"

* * *

At blue base, Wash finished fortifying most of the base with the help of blue team. _Not bad, not bad at all_ , he pondered, and soon he heard the loud screams coming from red base. _What are those guys up to now?_ Wash wondered in fatigue. "Tucker, go over to red base and make sure things are fine. And tell them to keep it down."

"Why me?"

"Because I don't feel like dealing with it, is that good enough of an answer for you? Now move it Captain Tucker."

"Looks like someone woke up on the wrong side of bed today," Tucker mumbled jogging across the canyon to the reds. "Yo, Wash wants you all to keep it down."

Tucker stopped to see Grif stomping on a hammer. Donut hummed a whacky tune and O'Malley stood beside Grif encouraging him to take out his anger on the hammer and all of its brethrens. _Man, I thought Caboose was the weirdest of the bunch, but this right here takes the cake_. Sarge walked out from back of the base with Lopez. "Well, well if it isn't our good aqua buddy Tucker."

"Hey Sarge, Wash sent me over to tell you all to keep it down."

"Don't you worry about that, I have just the solution to silence Grif's weenie cries."

Lopez walked over, picked up the hammer and began working. Donut was happy to see his Spanish speaking robot friend. Grif just walked away saying something about a break and O'Malley reverted to Doc hoping he didn't say anything to embarrass himself. Sarge watched his men hard at work. "There problem solved, by the way, how is it coming along on your end?"

"We are almost done. Need any extra help? Setting up the extra walls will probably take one whole day. At the rate you guys are going, I would say you can use all the free hands possible."

"No no we have this under control. Next I will think of a creative way of ridding us of our 'Grif just existing' problem."

"Okay, offer is always open. Just give us the word and we will come over."

"Thanks."

* * *

"No problem," Tucker jogged back to blue base. Catching his breath he reported in. Wash seemed satisfied at the results. "Good, now let's get back to applying the final coating on these fortifications before we let them dry for the rest of the day."

"Where is Caboose?"

"I have him monitoring the computer in case any more messages come through."

"In other words you just didn't want him out here fucking up anything."

"That's…one way of putting it," Wash admitted with a blush under his helmet. The grey armored soldier turned to find Carolina finishing her sector. "Alright boys, how's it looking?"

"It looks like a steam roller crashed into the wall here," Tucker said studying the shoddy job. Carolina cracked her knuckles with a nerve popping on her forehead. "Excuse me?"

"Uh…I mean it looks like the most beautiful work of art. Like Mona Lisa and shit."

"Wow, I feel so special to have received that comment," she replied sarcastically amusing Wash. She turned to the grey armored soldier asking. "Wash, what do you think?"

"Sorry Carolina but I gotta agree with Tucker. Here, let me see the hammer."

She handed the hammer over and stepped back in self disappointment. Wash noticed her sullen mood as he sat down to fix the salvageable bits. "Don't worry too much about it Carolina. We all have things we are good at, and things we are bad at."

"Sure…"

"Why don't you and Tucker bring out the materials needed to start the final coating on the wall?"

Carolina bowed her head in irritation. "Sure…"

* * *

Later into the day, the teams looked at their bases with crossed arms. Satisfied with the progress they could make in the limited time, they all went back inside to hit the sack. After a long day they had all agreed to take a break from their night shifts, and for once Sarge didn't argue knowing the value behind the rest they had all earned.

Yet sleep was harder for some than others, namely Wash as he was woken up in the middle of the night by a crackling sound. He got out of bed to reach for his helmet and gun. Walking outside he studied the sky. _There are no dark clouds, what was that sound then?_ Then he saw a ship breaking through the atmosphere. _Oh great, don't tell me that this is an enemy assault_. Following the estimated landing path of the small spaceship, Wash quickly ran over to the caves.

When he reached the ship, he saw the door already open. Looking around, he walked in with light and small steps to avoid creating any unnecessary noises. He stepped inside the ship with his gun pointed forward and finger ready on the trigger. The ship was completely silent, and only barely illuminated by the moonlight shining through the windows. _What is going on here? If the enemy was attacking, why haven't they showed themselves yet?! Unless they are already at the bases!_

Wash ran out of the ship only to be stopped in his tracks as he noticed a distortion in front of him. Light was being bent outlining a familiar figure. Washington raised his gun at the figure. "Show yourself."

The figure de-cloaked leaving Wash surprised. "Locus?"

"Hello, Agent Washington."

"Is that your ship?"

"Yes," Locus replied beginning to walk towards the bases. Wash stepped in front of him blocking his path. "Where do you think you are going?"

"We have much to discuss," Locus replied before he gently shoved Wash out of his way. Washington looked at Locus and shook his head. _Much to discuss he says, great, so much for a peaceful sleep_.


	14. New Threat

**Chapter 13: New Threat**

"So Wash, mind explaining to us why you woke us up in the middle of the night?" Grif asked extremely agitated. A yawn escaped several soldiers and many were just as irritated. Tucker was even more so irritated than the others. "Yeah man, I was finally getting some sleep and you wake me up? Not to mention I was having this really hot dream with two chicks in it."

Washington looked behind him towards the entrance. "Come on in."

Everyone looked towards the door only to quickly become alert at the figure de-cloaking in the frame. Carolina raised her gun at him with anger present in her voice. "You…"

"Calm down Carolina. He is not here as an enemy," Wash replied stepping between the man and the gun. She begrudgingly lowered her gun causing the others to question Wash's sanity. Once everyone calmed down a little, he did his best to reassure everyone. "Locus is here as an ally, at least for now. He said he had more information regarding the message he had transmitted to us."

"Look dude, I know you said you will try to make things right, and no offense but I seriously did not want to see anymore mercenaries anytime soon," said Grif feeling a sensation of fear settle in. _Seriously, this dude is fucking scary_.

"We should at least hear him out," Simmons suggested earning several agreeable nods from the others. Caboose in his forgiving and happy tone as always asked. "Tell us your delicious secrets Mr. Mercenary man!"

"You and your crew are in danger," he began only to be interrupted by Tucker. "Yeah, we already knew that from your message. Tell us something we don't know."

Locus let out an audibly heavy sigh. Wash smirked under his helmet, _you think this is bad? Then you are in for a treat_. Locus looked specifically towards Tucker. "The enemy will be coming after you."

"Me?"

"Yes, you possess what they are after, the alien sword."

"Um…okay, what do they want it for?"

"I don't know."

"That's a first for a guy who sounds like he would know everything," Sarge commented with his finger trained on the trigger of his shotgun. "I don't know everything Sergeant."

"That's Colonel to you."

Wash stepped between the two men wanting to inquire more. "Who is this enemy?"

"From when they came after me once before, I could tell that they are well armed. They have large numbers as well."

"How large?" Donut asked feeling a worry rise within him. Locus considered the question and answered. "Numbers I would say that are equivalent to that of a small scale army."

"Wait, how did you escape then?" Doc questioned clearly impressed at Locus' abilities to be able to outmaneuver his assailants.

"Numbers don't guarantee success. That is something you should all know from what happened on Chorus."

"So now you are here to warn Tucker of an impending danger. Do you know where the enemy is right now or when they could strike?" Carolina inquired. Locus shook his head. "Unfortunately no, as large as they are, they are good at covering their tracks."

"So basically we know nothing aside from that Tucker is in danger and by extension us?" asked Donut earning silence, and there he had his response. Grif nodded his head in understanding and turned to walk towards the exit. "Well it was fun knowing you losers."

"Where are you going?" asked Simmons.

"I'm going to someplace as far away from Tucker as possible."

"Seriously dude? Not cool," the aqua soldier replied. Grif turned around to retaliate. "Hey, I'm not the one with the red circle painted on his head. I want to be as far away from that shit as possible now."

"Grif, I order you to stay!"

"Screw that! You can order me to do some crazy stuff Sarge, but this ain't one of them."

"Well how about when I'm wiping my boots of some orange?" he said ominously. Grif sighed with his head low. "Ugh, fine…"

"That's fine what?"

"Fine, sir!"

Washington turned from the reds' exchange to Locus. "What do you know on the enemy if anything?"

"They are something of a rebel group, fighting against the UNSC. That is all I know at this point."

"Well that was helpful," Simmons said sarcastically. "What do we do now Sarge?"

"The first order of business should be preparing for this assault. We have fortified our defenses, but we can beef up our offenses as well."

"How? I don't see any more guns lying around here," said Tucker.

"Think about it, we have Lopez who can basically make something out of nothing."

"I don't see how that works, but sure?" Tucker answered shrugging his shoulders. Simmons turned to the whole group suggesting that they go ahead with the offensive enhancements. Everyone agreed giving them all some direction. But at the same time they all felt a sense of worry at the approaching imminent battle.


	15. Mounting Up

**Chapter 14: Mounting Up**

Locus toured the canyon to familiarize himself with his surroundings and soon to be battle grounds. In the shadows, he was trailed by Carolina who remained wary of him at all times. Unfortunately for her, her cover was not as strong as she believed it to be. Locus turned around pointing his Squad Automatic Weapon assault rifle and scanned the area inch by inch.

"Come out Agent Carolina."

 _How did he know?_ She stepped out from within the shadows pointing her gun at him. Locus lowered his gun and turned to study the canyon. "This is quite a peaceful location."

Carolina simply opted to remain quiet as she studied him. Her gun was still raised, and her anger was boiling over. _It was because of you that so much damage occurred to Chorus_. She understood that it was also because of Locus the crew was able to defeat Felix, but he still played a huge part in ruining Chorus to the extent it had been.

"Tell me something Locus, why did you do what you did on Chorus?"

Locus lowered his head in shame. "It was because I wanted to be the perfect soldier, the perfect weapon. I believed that was the only way for me to achieve that goal."

"By killing millions?!"

"I know I played a huge role in killing many, I was at the heart of it all. I know I wanted to save the lives of many as well at the same time. But what I thought was the perfect soldier image prevented me from doing so. That is until even my own beliefs were questioned by Agent Washington."

Carolina could not accept these words. No apologies or discussions on ideologies will help sway this anger inside of her. "Because of you…we lost many. Because of you and your corrupt fight, I lost someone precious to me."

"The Epsilon unit, I'm aware. I can't bring him back, all I can say is that I'm sorry for what everyone went through because of me."

 _Bullshit!_ She in anger punched the rock behind her. Locus looked at the damaged rock and the trembling fist. He looked back towards the canyon and said. "Anger, hatred and fear are what drive conflicts. The past will always be the same, and because of that you may always feel anger and hate towards me. But I'm trying to make things right."

"How can you do that when you can't even change the actions of your past?!"

"I'm trying by doing the right thing in the present, the right thing that will affect the future positively."

Carolina lowered her head, understanding his words even if she didn't want to accept them. In her mind the image of the ruthless and insane mercenary was still alive. Yet reality begged to differ from the person she was presented with. She left the Locus alone on that sour note, and felt the need to go work out her anger through training.

* * *

"Lopez, help us move these teleportation units will you?" Simmons asked doing his best to move one, but no progress was made. He took in a deep breath thinking, _who thought it would be a good idea to make these things out of such heavy material?_

"[Step away puny cyborg]," said Lopez as he lifted the teleportation units and went down to the lower level of the base from the roof. Grif was impressed at the weight Lopez was able to lift. "Why can't you be cool like that Simmons?"

"Look who's talking," the maroon soldier replied pointing at the bag of chips Grif had close to him. Grif took a bit of the chip in his hand. "This is just my well earned snack break."

"Yeah, for the work you never did, good job Grif."

Donut went to both bases collecting all the additional grenades he could. _Man I'm going to have a whale of a time tossing these out. Everyone can have a grenade!_ Doc walked by Red base. "Hey Donut, do you guys have any medical supplies I could take?"

"Is someone injured?"

"No, but doesn't hurt to be prepared if we need them in the battle."

"Good point Doc, why not check inside with Sarge? I'm sure he will be happy to spare some."

"Okay, thanks."

Sarge sat inside the base studying his two beautiful works of art. He had just finished building two high caliber machine guns, one to be mounted on each base. He got Simmons on radio quickly asking him to bring the Warthog around to the front. "We have a delivery to make Simmons."

"Yes sir," Simmons answered running to the back of the base and starting up the car. Simmons was surprised Grif didn't bother arguing about this; after all normally Grif would drive. But then again, he was too busy stuffing his face with chips. Driving the vehicle out front, Doc and Sarge came outside.

"Alright Simmons, help me load up these guns."

"Yes sir."

"Mind if I hitch a ride? I need to get over to blue base," said Doc.

"Sure, that's fine. Just as long as you are not driving," replied Simmons easily recalling the incident they once had before with him and Sarge. Loading up the guns in the back, the soldiers loaded up and drove off to blue base. Midway Sarge noticed the teleporter units on both the side of the canyon. He was again impressed by the effort his subordinates put in.

* * *

At Blue base, Washington had just finished doing an inventory check of all their weapons and ammo on stock. He made sure to neatly label and document them from the priority of most badass to weenie. _Counting the weapons Grif still has from Chorus, I would say we have a pretty good stock overall_. Wash walked out of the storage room at hearing the beeps of a car. He ran outside to see the reds and Doc all departing from the Warthog.

"Hey Wash, how's it looking on this end?" asked Simmons bringing out the machine gun. Wash was surprised at the craftsmanship and even more surprised to hear of the person responsible for crafting the weapon. "We have a crap ton of guns and a tank on our side. Let's not forget about Sheila either, she will easily pack the fire power of five tanks combined."

"Where are the others by the way?" Simmons questioned as he helped Sarge carry the base of the machine gun up top. Washington looked around the canyon. "Caboose is off somewhere with Sheila, I left him in-charge of explaining to Sheila about what we will need of her to do during the battle. Tucker is busy setting up the teleporter units, and the last I saw of Carolina was when she was busy pulverizing a few rocks by the back of the base."

* * *

Caboose stood out in the field with Sheila and Freckles doing his best to try and explain her role in the upcoming battle. "So Sheila, I was wondering if you had some time to spare."

"Of course Caboose, what would you like to discuss?"

"Um, well you see Wash asked me to tell you that we need you to get all angry and mean if any bad guys ever show up. Maybe you can turn green and scare them all away!"

"Do you mean that I eliminate any hostile forces that step on Blood Gulch soil?"

"Yes, that is totally what I mean."

"Then I will do that."

"Oh, oh you are just the best Sheila," said Caboose only to feel a slight tingle in his hands from the now jealous Freckles. "Excuse me?"

Caboose was quickly put on the spot as he looked down in panic. His voice was breaking in an attempt to quickly get the following words out. "Ah, um, second best?"

* * *

Simmons finished setting up the machine gun and quickly tested to ensure it was fully functional. He jogged back down and reported back in to Sarge. "It's all set up and good to go sir."

"Excellent work Simmons!"

Washington studied the gun, and their other preparations. He knew they were armed to the teeth, at least as best anyone could be in this middle of nowhere canyon, but there was still a sense of doubt in his mind. He could not help but consider running the different possibilities and outcomes in his head. _No Wash, sometimes you just have to have faith_. He walked up to Sarge asking. "So, what do you think? Do you think we are ready?"

Sarge looked at the teleporter units, the tank, Sheila and her high powered guns, the mounted machine guns and considered the numerous amounts of guns and ammo they have in storage, and with confidence he could say yes. "I think we have enough to push back anyone stupid enough to attack us now."

"Yeah, if they are smart, they will just steer clear," said Simmons as he loaded a few of the weapons and ammo from Blue base on to the Warthog for transfer. Wash let out a sigh sparking some curiosity in Sarge. "What's up Wash?"

"Nothing, I guess I'm just a little worried at what might happen."

"Don't you worry your head over that; together we have this under control."

"Yeah, I suppose we do," he replied feeling a sense of reassurance. Wash knew now that without the reds and blues he could never hope to survive again on his own long term. They had all become an anchor for him, both for his emotions and mental stability. He chuckled under his helmet further reaffirming to Sarge's confidence. "Yeah, we have this in the bag."

* * *

Carolina punched the canyon wall creating another dent in it. She breathed heavily and huffing with every contact she made. She stopped to study the various cracks and dents on the wall, the pulverized rock formations behind her and most of all her heart bearing down heavily on her. She rested her head against the canyon wall, her teeth clenched together and eyes struggling to hold back the pain. _I guess I was not ready to see him again so soon_.

She felt a little tingle in the back of her head. _What was that?_ She turned around to ponder the strange sensation. Yet this feeling was familiar. Her thoughts however were interrupted as she looked up to see Locus approaching her. "What do you want?"

"I understand that you don't wish to talk to me Agent Carolina-", he began before being quickly interrupted. "Then why are you here?"

With a slight groan of annoyance he continued. "I wanted to make sure that you will be compliant with me during combat. Whether you agree with me, or talk to me out of combat is of no importance to me. However during combat is another matter, after all, partners communicate."

"We are not partners," she said bending down to pick up her rifle. She shoved past him but was quickly stopped midway by a tight grip on her shoulder. "You didn't answer my question Agent Carolina."

She bent her head down with a heavy sigh. _Whether I like him or not is really irrelevant when it would come to fighting a common enemy. I really have no choice if I especially hope to protect him_ , she pondered looking up at the base towards Tucker. "Yes, I will cooperate, and…I will try to let go of the past to improve the future, just like you Locus."

He let go of her and she walked off. Locus looked up towards Tucker and was struck by an interesting and amusing question. _How is it that out of everyone in the galaxy, it was him who got the ownership to the alien sword? Strange, yet somehow fitting_. He went about his business as well leaving for the crew to get whatever sleep they could before their imminent battle.


	16. The Heavens Attack

**Chapter 15: The Heavens Attack**

"What about the power to teleport, but only when you are around naked chicks?" asked Grif.

"Are you kidding me? That's a terrible super power," Simmons replied. Tucker over the radio though commented otherwise. "That's a great superpower! I can finally achieve my fantasy of seeing girls naked doing some things together and still have the ability to teleport out before anyone comes to break my ribs."

"That's oddly specific…," Simmons inquired and over the radio Caboose asked. "What sorts of things are the girls doing?"

Tucker could be heard sighing. "Nothing Caboose, just go stare into the corner or something."

"Oh I already played that game, I got bored. I know, who wants to go outside to play fetch?!"

"Would you two stop blocking the radio with your pillow talk?" Sarge asked annoyed at the words being spewed into his ears. Grif exasperated with an irritated groan. "Yeah fine, this conversation was lame anyways."

"Locus, do you know anything regarding the plans for enemy's assault timing?" Wash asked approaching the withdrawn soldier in the corner. "No."

"Well isn't that dandy? At least we are keeping up with the trend of knowing jack squat here," said Grif over the radio. As crude as that statement was, the crew could find themselves agreeing to it. All they knew that an enemy was supposed to attack and each of them equally felt frustrated at the lack of insight from Locus.

"Here is hoping that the fortifications hold up," Carolina commented walking towards one of the window openings. Wash walked to another opening and mumbled. "They will."

* * *

A good hour went by and nothing had happened. Had they been duped into believing Locus wrongly? Or did he simply have misinformation? Tucker leaned back against one of the walls asking. "Are we seriously going to hole ourselves up like this from now on? I mean no enemy has showed up yet. And we have been on alert like this for a good four hours now."

"Yeah, Tucker does have a point," said Donut now beginning to question the whole idea of hiding like this in their bases. "I mean if an enemy does begin an assault, can't we just run for our bases at that time?"

"That does seem to be the more liberating option," Doc replied and quickly made a switch to O'Malley. "And when our enemies show up, I can help give them a nice red showery welcome ha ha ha!"

"[Oi guys, why are we here when we can just be holed up in our rooms? No offense…actually full on offense but I don't want my RAM to be wasted by all of your damn pillow talk.]"

"Lopez, I don't know what you just said but you presented it in such a calm and professional manner, great suggestion," said Sarge and instantly went on to ignore their robot companion. Lopez simply walked out to his quarters. "[Whatever.]"

As soon as Lopez left, everyone heard a large bang coming from the sky. "Um…what was that?"

"Eyes on targets," Lopez replied scoping out a few silhouettes in the sky. "Three ships from the looks of it."

"T-Th-Three?!" Grif asked nearly choking on the word. Simmons rushed towards the base window and looked through the sights of his rifle. "Coordinates?"

"Up top to your three o'clock by the looks of it," said Wash now activating the window shutters. "Carolina, activate the base energy shield. Sarge, do the same on your end."

"On it," he said already at the Window panels. Simmons went ahead and activated their base energy shield giving a sense of safety to the crew. Donut breathed easy noting. "At least now we will be safe."

"Yeah, for as long as the shield get the energy and hold up against enemy attacks," Simmons countered earning several groans from the crew. Tucker shook his head noting. "Dude, wait a go be a downer."

The three ships broke through the clouds with increasing sound and momentum. Lopez came rushing in and activated the external cameras they had setup all around the canyon. He activated a holographic map displaying the ships in a hovering position. Grif scratched his head at their passive and weird behavior. "What are they doing?"

"Maybe they decided we are just too much of a badass for them and now want to surrender or something," Tucker said over the radio. Just as he finished they were hit by a missile. "I hate my stupid mouth."

"I hate it even more," Grif replied seeing the ships fire multiple missiles at the two bases. Sarge studied the initial bombardment as well as the impact on the shields. "Good, looks like they will hold for a while. As long as the shields hold, maybe they will just get bored with firing at us and leave."

"Yeah right," Tucker replied wary of such hope. Caboose walked over slowly to the others. "So um, Tucker did you hear that loud bang?"

"Are you seriously asking me about that just now? That happened like a good three minutes ago Caboose."

Locus looked at the interactions between the crew and could not help but ponder, _how do these people get any work done if all they do is talk about nonsense?_ Wash called for Locus and Carolina to one side of the base. "How good is your aim Locus?"

"Better than it was on Chorus, what are you thinking Agent Washington?"

"Will you be able to shoot out the engines of the ships? As soon as they crash down, we can all take a team to each ship and clear it out."

Locus reloaded his sniper rifle and walked towards the window shutter controls. "Just give me the word, and it will be done."

"Are you sure about this?" Carolina followed Wash with great concern in her tone. This was concern that was not because of the plan details, but for the safety of the crew. Washington could understand where she came from, he too worried for the guys, but sometimes there were just some risks you could not avoid. "I'm sure Carolina, get Tucker and Caboose together; they will be on your team. I will get the reds on radio and explain the plan to them."

* * *

"Does anyone hear anything?" Simmons asked on radio.

"If you mean the sound of Wash coming up with a plan to kill us all, then yes," Grif replied already losing faith in their possible victory. "No you idiot, what happened to the ships?"

"Agent Washington, you may want to see this," Locus called out as Wash walked up beside him. There was a new rising sense of worry now, the ships had landed. The back doors were opening. _Oh no_ , he turned to get everyone on radio chatter. "Get ready for ground warfare."

"Ground warfare? They landed their ships?! What now Sarge?" Simmons questioned in a panic. Sarge held Simmons by the shoulder pad and told him to calm down. "It these bastards want a toe to toe fight, then I say we show them what a gun fight is all about."

"Except that the numbers aren't really even," said Donut with his voice quivering in fear. The others looked out the now open windows to see the growing number of soldiers in black armor exiting the ships. The soldiers all prepared their assault rifles pointed at the two bases. One of the soldiers with a loud voice amplifier spoke. "Inhabitants of the two bases, come out without your weapons and you will live. We only seek Lavernius Tucker."

"Men, battle stations! It's time to send the enemy back from where they came from!" Sarge shouted rushing out of the room with his shotgun ready. Grif shook his head with a heavy sigh and looked towards Simomns. "He does realize that we are going to die making a final stand like this right?"

"Probably, but it wouldn't be the craziest thing we have done."

Carolina, Washington, Tucker, Caboose and Locus all reloaded their weapons and walked outside near the barricades. Grif readied his Grif shot, Simmons, Donut and Lopez all readied weapons. Doc reloaded his rocked launcher switching full on over to O'Malley. "Time to give that welcoming present."

The whole crew stood outside their bases behind barricade and other cover. They all raised their guns as did the enemy. They were ready to make their stand and do whatever was necessary to help protect Tucker and the alien sword. They were ready to go down fighting.


	17. United We Are Strong

**Chapter 16: United We Are Strong**

"Open fire!" Sarge shouted firing his shotgun. Everyone began to fire their weapons. Sarge looked towards Simmons. "Get up there and operate the machine gun."

"Yes sir!" Simmons ran into the base and up to the top. Washington ordered the same of Tucker. Both men mounted the machine gun and began firing. Donut kept on picking off any that dare to come close. Sarge ran inside and brought out the box of grenades. "Donut, get to tossing."

"You got it boss!" Donut opened up the crate, took several in his hands and began throwing them out at random. "You get a grenade, and you get one. You in the far back, don't feel left out because you get one as well! Everyone gets a grenade!"

Grif kept on maintaining crowd control for any who dared to venture near them. Sarge looked towards O'Malley who was busy firing the rocket launcher. "Doc, fire at their ships' guns."

"Let them taste the sour taste of defeat mwhahahah!"

Blue base faired quite well as well. Washington looked towards Sheila, _time to bring out the big guns_. "Give them hell Sheila!"

"It will be my pleasure," she replied stepping in front of Blue base and firing her hand cannons. Washington looked towards Caboose who was nailing targets left and right with help from Freckles. He looked at Carolina who was busy eliminating some of the more difficult targets. He turned to Locus and said. "I need you to use the teleporter, get up on one of the sides of the canyon and take out some targets with your sniper rifle."

"Understood."

"Remember to run your invisibility cloak."

Locus ran up to the teleporter and disappeared into thin air. The next thing the enemy knew was that they were being picked off one by one. Everyone turned to look at the shot trails calculated by their HUD and opened fire in the general direction. They all tilted their head in confusion, no enemy was present and there certainly was no blood on the canyon walls from their shots. Yet again several of them were picked off in quick succession. _Guess he still has his edge_ , Washington thought picking off a few from the bunch himself.

* * *

"Wash," Sarge called up his ally on radio. "Get the tank out. We can take the majority of them out like this."

"Right," he rushed outside to the back of the base. He entered the tank and powered it up. "Tucker, make sure that none of them have a chance to throw any explosives my way."

"How am I supposed to see which ones have explosives? There is like a million assholes out there."

"Just…keep firing at them all."

"Woo hoo!" Simmons shouted having a whale of a time on the gun. "Suck it black!"

"The fuck you say?!" Simmons heard come out from the crowd of enemy soldiers. _Uh oh_ , he quickly gave his rebuttal. "Just to clarify, that was based off of your armor color. If any of you are black, that was not meant to be racist."

"Says the man firing a machine gun point blank at a black man!"

"Seriously, it's all a big misunderstanding. Which one of you took offense? If you show yourself I'm sure we can work this out."

"It was me maroon boy," said an enemy soldier strolling up to the base. Simmons stared at the soldier blankly studying the enemy's stupidity for a few minutes as the soldier stopped in his tracks. "Well?"

With the click of the triggers, Simmons opened fire at the soldier mowing him down. "Problem solved!"

"Bro, that was harsh," Grif commented picking off a group with his Grif shot.

"He was still the enemy that is trying to kill us!" Simmons spoke irritated at the criticism.

"I'm very proud of you Simmons, so much suffering in his last few moments," said O'Malley considering the cruelty bar that had just been raised by Simmons. At the sound of a loud bang, everyone turned to notice the tank now in full action. Sarge was visibly let down. "Darn it, I wanted to drive the tank."

"It's better this way Sarge, you would probably reverse it into Blue base anyways."

"Shut up Grif."

"Come in Agent Washington, I'm running out of ground on my end to maneuver around with."

"Then get back to base, and help Carolina."

"Understood," Locus replied running back into the teleporter. He came out the other end and ran downstairs to cover Carolina who was outside inching closer to the enemy. _She is just as reckless as the last time I fought her_. He took out a soldier behind a rock before they could open fire on Carolina. She looked at the falling body and back to base. _Guess I owe him one_. She quickly got up and ran behind the rock for cover.

* * *

Caboose was still mowing down enemies like a champ thanks to Freckles. Sheila was busy stomping and firing away several rockets. However her shields started to run low on power. Wash took quick notice and radioed into the reds. "Sarge, we need Lopez here to help recharge Sheila."

"Got it," Sarge confirmed turning to Lopez and giving him his instructions. "[At least I don't have to be around you idiots now, score.]"

The Spanish robot came out the other portal on Blue base. Tucker fired relentlessly at the enemies and talked at the same time creating for some very choppy sentences. "Lopez, good thing you are here. Get up on top of Sheila and do your thing."

"What?!" she exclaimed with a nervous tone and Lopez suddenly started fidgeting. "[I'm getting very sweaty right now.]"

Wash studied the ammo counter. _I'm going to be running dry soon_. "Locus, I'm bringing the tank back to Blue base. Have an ammo pack ready by the back."

As soon as Locus was gone, Carolina had lost her backup. She gritted her teeth thinking, _this is harder than it used to be. Before I could rely on Epsilon for armor enhancements, but now…dammit!_ She peeked up from the rock to see multiple tangos approaching from the front. _No way can I handle them all on my own_. "Caboose, tell Freckles to cover me."

"Don't ask Caboose to help you!" Tucker exclaimed switching targets to cover Carolina. "Why not?"

"Unless you want to be a part of his team kill count, I would really not ask him for help in the middle of a fight," Tucker replied noticing the machine gun quickly approaching its limits. "Heads up Carolina, my gun is going to overheat. Now would be a great time to start moving to a better position."

Carolina jumped out shooting her pistol at the various soldiers in her way and ran up to another cover point. Tucker stopped firing to give the gun a breather but saw the enemy converging on Carolina. "Shit!"

He ran up and took aim with his rifle and gave suppressing fire. "Carolina, firing your gun any time now would be real good."

However Tucker's fears of this fight were starting to be realized when he saw Carolina taking a bullet through the abdomen. "Fuck! Wash we got a problem!"

"Talk to me."

"It's Carolina, she's been shot and the enemy is quickly converging on her."

Washington quickly rushed inside to observe the scene through the windows. "Caboose, see those guys over there?"

"Yeah."

"Help them, they are on our team."

"Sure!"

The next thing they saw was a pile of dead bodies building upwards. Caboose stopped with his voice low. "Um…that was not my fault."

Washington got Sarge on radio quickly. "Sarge, send Doc here, we need help."

"You got it," he replied instructing Doc who hesitantly went through the teleporter. Sarge could quickly see their time running out here though. "Alright men, we are going to retreat to Blue base."

"Are you sure sir?" Simmons asked feeling as though he was being stripped away from his home again. Sarge lowered his head with a nod. He didn't like it one bit either, but with low numbers on their side, they were weak right now and more susceptible to injuries. "Wash, we are all going to be coming your way. Get ready."

"What? Why?!"

"We are outnumbered with just Donut, Grif, Simmons and me here. Before with Doc and Lopez we had an even playing field, but with those two gone we can't hold out for long without taking casualties."

"Fine," Wash submitted informing Tucker to be ready at the teleporter. The whole crew jumped through the teleporter and arrived safe and sound. Sarge quickly jumped on board the task of reloading the tank and told Locus. "Go help inside."

Sarge looked at Simmons motioning towards the tank. "Jump in Simmons, we have got some trash to take out."

"Yes sir!"

* * *

Doc came rushing down to Washington. "I heard what happened, where is the patient?"

"Out there," Wash replied pointing to her position. Doc suddenly felt a chill travel down his spine. "Um…why would she even go out there on her own like that?"

"Doc, not the time! We need to help her," Wash replied in a no nonsense stern tone. Doc quickly cleared his mind of such questions. "Right, I will need some covering fire and another person to help me carry her back to base."

"Leave the suppressing fire to me," Tucker said from up top. Washington volunteered to help retrieve her. The two went into the battlefield running amongst the several explosions perpetuated by the many enemy grenades. Donut scoffed in irritation. "Hey, they stole my idea of grenades for everyone!"

"Who cares, they just go boom anyways, teleporter cubes were much cooler," said Grif doing his best to clear the field of grenades for his fellow fighters. Doc and Wash made it over to Carolina's position. "She isn't looking too good."

Wash took her one arm and Doc took the other. Wash noticed the tank fire on the enemy. _Good this will buy us some time_. "Alright Doc, on three…"

Tucker began suppressing fire for Doc and Wash to make it back to base. As the two reached the side, a stray bullet cleanly pieced through Wash's right leg. "Agh! Dammit!"

Doc quickly carried Carolina to the back and came back for Wash. "Hold on, try to stand up."

He helped Wash limp to the back and set him down next to Carolina. Opening his box of medical supplies he got to the quick patch work he could do in the midst of this battle. Tucker peeked over the edge. "How are they going to be Doc?"

"It's not looking good. Carolina is already out, and Washington's been shot in the right leg. They will be out of the fight for the time being."

"Great, now what do we do?" Tucker pondered getting back on the machine gun. Simmons opened fire taking out several in their path. "Sarge, should we get back to base?"

"Why? I say we can keep on pushing them back like this."

Those were his words until he noticed a soldier with rocket launchers. "Aw nuts!"

The enemy soldier opened fire just as the two reds got out in time. They retreated back to base in the midst of the gun fire. The tank was ignited in flames, no longer repairable. Tucker rushed to the back to see the progress Lopez was making. "Sheila, we could really use your help out there. We are kind of getting pummeled."

"That's putting it lightly," Grif said sarcastically. Simmons rushed into the base screaming. "We are definitely screwed!"

"Calm down Simmons, as long as there is a single bullet in our guns we can still fight!" Sarge said in encouragement. Lopez jumped off of Sheila's back after unplugging the power cables. "[All done, give them hell.]"

"Got it big guy," she replied walking back out and beginning their counter fire to the opposition once again. Locus looked around at their current situation and shook his head. He walked up to Sarge. "We need to level the playing field."

"What do you mean?"

"Carolina and Washington are both down. They were some of our most experienced fighters, we need to start fighting smart. No longer can us just shooting our guns help."

"He is right sir," said Simmons even though he did hate to agree with a former enemy. Sarge looked towards Doc who was frantically working to patch both the two freelancers as well as soothe their pain. "Right, time for plan B."

"Plan B, what's plan B?" Grif asked only to see all the fragments materialize. Sarge looked at Theta and nodded his head. "You know what to do."

"I'm on it!" Theta replied with Delta giving a confirmation as well. "Now executing plan B, strategic play."


	18. Smart Tactics

**Chapter 17: Smart Tactics**

"Hey, what gives? Why did you guys stop firing?" Tucker asked as he kept on laying the machine gun fire on the enemy. Sigma appeared beside Tucker. "It seems we are moving to plan B."

"Plan B? What's plan B?"

"Smart tactics."

"Thanks for a not so helpful answer Sigma," Tucker replied getting off of the machine gun and running down. "Sheila, hold the line."

He ran inside the base to see everyone gathered together in a circle formation. He squeezed in between Caboose and Grif. "What are you guys doing? We still got like over a hundred assholes out there."

"Shh!" Simmons replied observing a digital map laid out by the fragments. Tucker observed several dotted lines as well as solid ones. "Someone mind explaining what is going on?"

"Planning, Captain Tucker," said Delta as he highlighted another route. Theta ran around on the map and bent down to look at it from different angles. "What if we take this route?"

"That won't work, the Red base is no doubt a danger zone now," said Gamma with Delta agreeing. "I concur. We need to presume that Red base as fallen to the enemy now. Our best options are the teleporters."

"I suggest breaking up into two teams," Sigma proposed. "We can cover more ground that way."

"Good point," Sarge agreed looking to the other reds. "Simmons and Donut, you two are with me."

"Captain Tucker could take Caboose and Lopez," said Sigma earning an irritated sigh from Tucker. "Fine I guess I will go…"

"Finally, a plan where I don't have to throw my life away on the front lines," Grif commented going back to his previous post in maintain crowd control. Sarge radioed in Lopez. "Come in Lopez, we need you on the machine gun!"

"I would move now if you plan to go," Grif advised studying the break in enemy formation and their panic. Sarge rushed out with his team and Tucker with his. Tucker looked back towards Doc. "Take care of them Doc."

* * *

They all jumped through the teleporter to the two respective sides of the canyon. Locus looked through the scope of his sniper rifle to study the Red base. "No hostiles detected."

"You hear that Sarge?" Tucker asked for a confirmation. On the other end, the reds were happy to hear of the news. "Yup, alright boys, we are going to make a supply run."

"I don't want to be the negative nancy here but is it really safe sir?" Simmons questioned. Sarge shook his head. "None of this is safe Simmons, but we are soldiers."

 _I really wish I had just taken a desk job or something_ , Simmons pondered running back through the teleporter to Red base. Sarge trained his shotgun in front of him at all times. "Alright boys, let's take whatever we can. Donut, get the grenades. Simmons, get the machine gun."

"On it boss!"

"Um…okay, how are we going to do this?" Simmons pondered staring at the machine gun. Just as he tried lifting it up, he came under fire. "Fuck!"

Simmons mounted the machine gun and opened fire. "Sarge, they know we are here. Can we hurry this up?!"

"Right, let's go Donut!" and Donut came up running with a bag of grenades. Sarge studies the enemy closing in on Blue base. _Of all the times for them to have trouble, it had to be now_. Sarge ordered Donut to carry the machine gun back to base. "Come on Simmons, we will keep the enemy occupied and away from Blue base."

"How do we do that?"

"We still have the warthog," Sarge replied jumping into the driver's seat. Simmons jumped up into the turret position. The reds drove out into the crowd running several over. Simmons began firing the turret, and from his tone one could tell he was having a blast mowing down the targets. _Jeez, I would not want to be on the other end of that turret_ , Grif thought firing another shot taking care of another group of mooks.

Locus and Caboose took out several from the cliff side. Locus ran his camo unit and switched positions as the blues drew fire. In quick succession he eliminated several hostiles. Tucker rushed to the teleporter with Caboose. "Fuck this! We are like sitting ducks out here. Locus we are going back to base!"

They only received silence as his response. _Well someone certainly loves being social_ , Tucker pondered sarcastically jumping back through the portal to Blue base. Caboose noticed the damage Sheila was taking, she suddenly ignited into flames. "Sheila! We have to help her!"

"[Eat lead!]" Lopez opened fire at the group focusing their fire on Sheila. Caboose asked for her to return. "Sheila, come back to the base!"

"God dammit, why can't things go our way for once?!" Grif pondered noticing his scarce remaining ammo. "Guys, I could use a hand here!"

Sarge circled around near Blue base and went in for another run over with Simmons quickly disabling the guns on the ships. Some of them were coming online, and Simmons quickly opened fire on them. "Watch out Sarge, we've got trouble!"

"What else is new?"

"No, I mean the ship's guns are activating."

"Oh, well that's unfortunate. Alright Simmons, lay it on them!"

"Yes sir!"

Yet even with all the effort Simmons poured into his aim, one gun managed to come online and make a clean shot for the two reds. The shot went right through one of the wheels burning the rubber off. "Retreat!"

* * *

Locus studied the situation with growing irritation. _We are too outnumbered and outgunned_. He jumped back through the teleporter and took over machine gun duty as Lopez was busy fixing Sheila. O'Malley approached the portal with his rocket launcher and programmed the rocket's path with Omega's assistance. "Eat explosions!"

He fired the rocked through the teleporter and it came out the one to the left side of the canyon. It curved downwards heading straight for a large group. They all scattered, however several could not escape without injuries ranging from mild to severe. O'Malley continued firing his rockets as Locus continued to suppress the enemy.

"This is one big clusterfuck!" Tucker complained looking towards the freelancers who were still resting in their spots. Sarge brought the car around the back and dismounted. Lopez took one look at the jeep and lost it. "[ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! I JUST FINISHED FIXING THAT YESTERDAY. WHY DO YOU IDIOTS ALWAYS RUIN THE VEHICLES YOU DRIVE IN COMBAT?!]"

"Theta, we need a new plan," said Sarge staring at his A.I. companion. Theta was rolling around on his skateboard trying to think up of a plan alongside Delta, Gamma pixilated between the two, and Sigma who burst into flames behind them all. They brought up the map of the canyon and began running their calculations of the different routes and possibility for success.

"Guys, I could really use some help right now!" Grif shouted panicking as he was running dangerously low on ammo. Everyone looked at Sarge who was blocking the door. "What?"

"Sir, shouldn't we help him?"

"No I think that would be too much work, and Grif wouldn't want it that way. We should just leave this to him."

"Oh come on!" Grif shouted in an annoyed tone. "Just fucking help me already!"

Simmons grabbed an extra crate of ammo and brought it to Grif. "Here, resupply while I cover you."

Donut continued to throw out the grenades but realized he was running out. "Um, you guys wouldn't happen to have anymore grenades lying around now would you?"

Sarge looked at the two grenades left in the crate and sighed. "Well that's just great. We need a plan of action real quick here boys."

By the front of the base, off went an explosion causing Simmons to fall back shell shocked. Sarge reloaded his gun and took over. "You bastards, you won't hurt anymore of my men! You will have to go through me!"

Suddenly a sniper shot pierced through the opening in the window making a clean breakthrough Sarge's left shoulder. "Agh!"

"Sarge!" Simmons stood up holding his falling CO in his arms. "Doc, we need you in here!"

Grif having reloaded and stocked up again, he began suppressing the enemies again. "Have the fragments come up with anything?"

"Unforunately at our present state, we are at a great disadvantage. With three people down, low ammunition and the growing fatigue, we are in no condition to execute any advanced techniques," Delta replied earning a sigh of grief from Grif. "Well that's just fucking great!"

* * *

 _This is bullshit! Just how many did they send after us?_ Tucker kept on firing his rifle taking several out now alongside Locus. He overheard the grey and green armored soldier comment. "The gun is going to overheat soon, be ready."

Just as Locus stepped away from the gun, they all heard a loud thundering sound from the sky. They all looked up only to find another enemy ship descending. Tucker could he heard sobbing in his helmet. "Aw you have got to be kidding me!"

"Well guys, I hate to say this but," Grif began noticing the growing numbers on the enemy's side. "I'm pretty sure we are fucked."

"Grif, not the time!" Simmons rebutted. Locus walked inside the base agreeing to Grif's sentiment. "He is right, we need to retreat."

"But where else can we go?!" asked Tucker.

"We have ships that we can hijack. I also have my own ship that I came down with here still parked safely by the caves."

"But what about Sheila?!" Caboose asked with growing worry. He knew that they may again be separated. Locus looked at the line of enemy soldiers inching closer by the second. "We don't have much time!"

Everyone was left speechless, such a heavy decision could not be made so easily. But then again their chances of forcing the enemy back now were slim. Sarge, Carolina and Washington were down. Sheila still needed critical repairs to be able to fight again. They were running low on ammunition, and on top of that their strongest gun was overheated, which would require time to cool down. Tucker smashed his fist against the base wall. "Fuck! He is right guys…we have to leave."

Caboose ran up close to Tucker again demanding what would happen to Sheila. "I'm sorry Caboose, but there is really no choice but to leave her here."

"Did you catch that Doc? We are leaving," Simmons transmitted over to their medic. "Yeah, I got it. We still need a way of getting one of those ships though."

They all looked at one another clueless. _Great a new problem_ , Tucker pondered with his head low. Grif again looked around the room and said with a low and defeated tone. "So we are still fucked?"

"No, we aren't," Locus replied determined to survive and he wasn't about to let Tucker's sword fall in the enemy's hand either. He reloaded his sniper rifle and scoped out a path towards the ship. He looked at the crew with a determined look under his helmet. "I have a plan."


	19. We Tried & Now We Flee

**Chapter 18: We Tried & Now We Flee**

Locus looked all around the room. "You all know what to do."

"Yeah," they all replied apprehensively at the highly risky plan Locus just discussed with them. Locus turned around and began to walk up to the teleporter. "Then let's do this nice and quick."

Simmons stared at Sarge who was now being treated for his wound. "Take good care of him Doc."

"Don't worry about him, just make sure to get us a ship. O'Malley may be quite destructive, but even the hundreds of troops outside would be too much for him."

"Right," Simmons replied running up top with the rest of the crew and entered the portal. Lopez remained behind to work on Sheila and occasionally open fire on the enemy. Sarge let out a grunt at the pressure Doc applied with the bandages. His vision while mostly clear was quite weary from the slight blood loss and fatigue from the battle. "Stay with me Sarge."

Tucker, Locus and Caboose popped out on one side of the canyon. Simmons, Grif and Donut popped out on the other side. They all trained their weapons at the running enemy soldiers headed for the base. Locus marked several on his HUD via the sniper rifle. "Open fire!"

Donut threw several grenades he luckily managed to find in Blue base storage. Grif opened fire with his Grif shot causing the enemy to be engulfed in panic and scatter. Caboose picked off many thanks to the auto aim feature in Freckles. Locus eliminated all those that entered his sight, just like on Chorus, he was quick to strike fear in the hearts of his enemy with his deadly precision and quick killing. Tucker opened fire with his rifle, but quickly slid down the canyon with his sword activated. The reds slid down as well leaving for Locus to jump to the other side of the canyon through the teleporter.

"What the hell is going on?!" one of the enemy soldiers asked looking around in panic. His heart struck with panic and devastation, he looked around at the falling bodies left and right. The soldier made a run for it to their ships only to be cut down by Tucker. "Stab! Not so tough now are you?"

A few other enemy soldiers pointed their guns in Tucker's way leaving him to slump his shoulders. "Ah fuck berries."

"Dude, you seriously gotta learn to shut up," Grif said making a break for the ship. Locus killed many chasing the reds and blues who were now so close to the ship. They were quickly stopped in their tracks however by an active mini gun on the ship. Simmons struggled to catch his breath looking over at the gun in disbelief. "There are still people in there?!"

"No duh there would still be people in there. You didn't think they were as dumb as us now did you?" Grif asked earning an annoyed shake from Simmons. "Just get to firing dumbass."

* * *

"We have company guys," Tucker said overwhelmed by the numbers that approached them now. _At least they aren't going for Blue base now_ , Tucker thought taking a strong stance. Locus slid down from the side of the canyon as well at the same time as Caboose. Locus activated his energy sword killing several while running his camouflage unit.

"Where the hell is the enemy attacking from?!" a soldier asked looking all around in panic. However before he could find his answers, he quickly lost all feeling and vision in his body, and he fell hard to the ground upon having his neck twisted by Locus. Caboose opened fire giving the others the suppressing fire and time they needed to open the door of the enemy's ship. Simmons was becoming increasingly annoyed at the complex algorithms of the lock.

"Dammit! Why do they have to make these this so hard to crack?!" Simmons questioned in anger as he kicked the door. Grif looked back speaking sarcastically. "Yes Simmons, kick the door. That will make it open, show it who's boss!"

The door suddenly opened with Grief shaking his head in disbelief. Simmons picked up his firearm and scanned the inside. "Donut, you are with me. Grif, guard the entrance."

Simmons motioned for Donut to check the left side as they moved inside. Tucker came running up to the ship in a hurry. "What gives? Why aren't we booking it out of here?!"

"TweedleNerd and TweedleHappy-go-lucky went to make sure the ship is clear."

"We don't have time for this!" Tucker replied running inside towards the cockpit only to be stopped at gun point. Suddenly, Donut popped out from a corner shooting the enemy soldier in the head. "Double-O Donut always gets his man!"

"Yeah yeah nice shot," Tucker replied getting into the cockpit. "Um so does anyone know how to fly this?"

"On my way," Grif replied with an annoyed sigh. _Do I gotta do everything around here?_ He looked at Caboose running up to the ship and told him to hold the line. Locus studied the situation and was satisfied with the results so far. Good, they are in. At least phase one of the plan went without any issues. Now all we need to do is clear a path for the injured. "Come in Captain Tucker."

"What is it?"

"Once a way has been created for the injured, return to base with Captain Caboose to help them board the ship."

"Right," Tucker replied running to the exit door and studying the ever changing battlefield. Studying the controls, Grif was at a loss for ideas as well. He brought up the communication controls and contacted Lopez on their communication channel. "Lopez, we need you in here. I can't seem to get the bloody thing started."

"[Have you tried turning it off and on again?]"

"Okay, I will see you soon!" Grif replied completely oblivious to what Lopez had just said. Simmons approached the control trying to get something out of it himself but quickly gave up. The twin fragments quickly came out merging together and accessed the panel. Grif pointed at the random lights blinking on the controls. "What are they doing?"

Gamma appeared beside Grif explaining the situation. "They are trying to bypass the security measures of this ship to access its core features such as flight and weaponry."

"Great, I will get on the turret to help clear a path," said Simmons running for the gun's cockpit. The security was bypassed and the lock on the weapons was released. Simmons pressed down the triggers after careful aim. "Firing main turret!"

Locus dispatched of another group without them ever even knowing what hit them, he called both Tucker and Caboose on their radios. "I need you two on extraction as discussed."

* * *

"Okay, let's do this!" Caboose exclaimed standing beside a weary Tucker. _Where does he get all this energy from?_ Tucker pondered running out again with their rifles raised and clearing a path for themselves. With some help from Simmons who opened fire creating an even wider path, the extraction team reached Doc safe and sound. Tucker looked around at the three injured wondering. "How are we going to do this?"

Locus de-cloaked behind Tucker who jumped in surprise. "Dude, do not do that ever again."

"The three of you take one each. I will make sure to cover us when we leave the base," said Locus ditching his sniper rifle in favor of his SAW assault rifle. He looked for a clearing while reloading the weapon. Raising it in front of him he ran out shouting. "Move now!"

Doc took Carolina, Caboose had Washington, Tucker helped Sarge who fired a pistol with his operable arm and Lopez followed close. Sheila made sure to help them in any way she could by eliminating potential threats in her line of sight. Their exit was clean and smooth with much of the enemy falling. As Sarge was buckled in tight he looked around at his men. "What's going on?"

Carolina was coming to and so was Washington. They both felt their heads to be a little woozy from the morphine Doc gave them. Carolina noticed the restraints on the chair and struggled a bit until Doc placed a hand on her knee. "Calm down Carolina."

"Doc?" Wash asked as his vision cleared a little. "Where are we?"

"We are ditching Blood Gulch," Tucker replied walking up to the front with Lopez. "Alright, we are good to go."

"Hold on," Locus called out walking up to the front. He looked at Tucker and motioned for him to follow to the exit. "What gives dude?"

"We will take my ship. It can only fit two people and I would much rather you be on my ship than this one. I can't risk the sword falling into the enemy's hands."

"What the hell? We are safe with these guys."

"But if we all go down, then the enemy can just come back to retrieve the swords."

"If you both are together on one ship, wouldn't that just mean that they could get two swords?" Donut argued earning several notable agreements. Locus turned to face the exit saying with an absolute tone. "I don't trust this ship to escape. But with me the sword and Tucker will be safe."

Simmons shouted from within the turret's cockpit. "What gives? Why are we not taking off? The enemy isn't going to just wait for us you know."

Carolina tried to stand up in defiance after undoing her safety restraint, but the morphine still had quite a bit off a kick causing her to fall down onto the seat again. Grif rushed to the back having overheard everything on radio. "Will you guys just make a decision already so we can fucking leave?!"

"I'm not offering a choice," Locus clarified noting his determination in this matter. Tucker shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. "Okay fine, let's go! Be sure to stay in contact you guys."

"You to," Sarge replied feeling a little more clear headed now. Washington watched the two leave and tried to reach out for them with a weak voice. _No…don't go Tucker. If only I could get up right now_. Lopez sat at the pilot's seat and closed the exit door. The ship began to power up; it was going to take some time. Donut jumped int a turret cockpit and began firing to help keep the area around the ship clear of any hostiles.

* * *

Locus and Tucker made sure to run whenever the enemy's attention was solely focused on the now high jacked ship. They made it safe and sound to the caves where Locus' ship was parked. Locus undid the security measures via a pass code and quickly entered to take control. Tucker closed the door behind them and called the rest of the crew over radio. "Alright, we are in Locus' ship. We are about to take off, what's the situation on your end?"

"Just about ready ourselves," Grif replied. Lopez increased speed causing the ship to start hovering. Tucker looked at Locus who was going through the start up procedure. "If you plan on launching, better do it now."

"Everyone, strap up," Grif said as he entered the seating area. They all looked down at their bases with a sense of sadness in their heart. It seems as if the forces of the universe can't help but keep them away from their home. Caboose balled his hands into a fist as he stared at Sheila. _Goodbye Sheila, please stay safe_.

Locus and Tucker launched off meeting up with the other ship and began to take off into the air. They all looked back one last time at their bases with the hopes of being able to return here again someday. Though as they quickly learned, their escape will not be easy.


	20. Tango Down

**Chapter 19: Tango Down**

The crew flew higher up into the sky by the second into the clouds. At the very front was Locus' ship, while in the back the rest followed. Tucker watched them closely from the rear window. He still could not believe that they were really abandoning their home again. None of them could believe it. Locus shifted his attention to a few silhouettes forming in the clouds. A noticeable sigh escaped him when he considered a potential threat and his options. The sigh however did not go unnoticed by Tucker who walked up to the front and leaned on the pilot's seat. "What's going on?"

Locus looked at the aqua soldier and looked back towards the shadows. He pointed at them just as they broke through the clouds. Tucker's mouth dropped open and with it so did his heart. "You have got to be shitting me…"

Before them were three battle class cruisers. Locus quickly made a smooth right turn to escape their assailants. Lopez took notice of the new threat and kept on Locus' tail. "[Oh shit, we are fucked]."

Simmons could feel his body going numb as his grips on the turret triggers loosened. Beneath that high tech armor was a man who felt stripped bare with fear in the face of an overwhelming force. Donut squirmed in his seat questioning their chances for survival. As positively naive as he was, he also had begun to recently question many things. No doubt this was in part due to Epsilon's death which left him with some mental scars.

The rest of the crew noticed the giant battle cruisers and quivered in their boots. Caboose was notably the calmest one of them all. "Oh, we have some new friends to play with."

"Well, at least I can finally sleep all I want once we are dead," Grif said gripping the safety restraints tightly on his seat.

"Grif, this is no time to be getting so pessimistic!" Sarge replied with a shaky tone. Carolina was still feeling out of it, and the high atmosphere wasn't helping any either. Washington shook his head in disbelief pondering, _just who the hell are these people? Why send so many soldiers after us for one person?_

"All this for the alien swords?!" Tucker panicked behind Locus who was becoming increasingly agitated. "Be quiet, I need to concentrate."

* * *

The cruisers suddenly opened fire. Both the escape ships rocked back and forth in an effort to dodge the enemy fire. Doc held the mouth piece of his helmet. "Ugh, I think I'm going to be sick."

Simmons and Donut took aim and opened fire at the magnified targets on their projection screens. In total they counted twenty active turrets firing at them. Tucker rushed up behind Locus while doing his best to keep his balance. "Do we have any weapons on this shuttle?"

"No."

"That's just great!" Tucker shouted falling backwards towards the rear. Locus could feel some sweat building up beneath his suit. _I won't be taken down here, especially not after coming this far. No matter the cost, I will survive_.

"The cruisers are chasing us!" Simmons shouted and missing nearly every shot in his panic. Lopez over the radio called for Grif. "[Take over the steering orange idiot.]"

"What he just say?"

"I think Lopez wants you to fly the ship," Donut clarified getting a questionable response on the other end. Grif rushed into the cockpit looking all around the controls. _Okay, here is hoping we don't blow up the moment I touch the controls_. Lopez worked his way amongst the shaking of the ship to the third turret cockpit. Activating the turret module, Lopez opened fire nailing several of the targets. "[Noobs.]"

All three battle cruisers suddenly fired a giant laser beam shot across the sky. Locus quickly acted to avoid it. Grif narrowly managed to dodge them all. "Oh no no no, what are you guys doing in the turrets for crying out loud?!"

Simmons locked onto one of the laser cannons and opened fire. The first couple of shots missed, but with some luck on his side he managed to get his target. "One of the laser cannons is down!"

"Nice!" Doc exclaimed only to again feel sick by the rocking of the ship. Donut managed to hit the other and Lopez hit the third. The battle cruisers quickly launched three units with each set composed of three ships. There were a total of nine ships that chased the escapees. Grif noticed the alarms and saw the picture from the rear view camera, and his shoulders dropped along with his spirit. "Oh fuck me…"

The enemy ships opened fire alongside the cruiser turrets. Simmons whimpered under his helmet. _I knew I should have just called command and asked for a desk job_. He opened fire alongside his compatriots shooting down several missiles that chased them. Following Locus, they nearly escaped the atmosphere, but found the enemy ships to be far too troublesome to deal with as they were. Grif became increasingly frustrated. "Fuck this."

Grif decreased the thrusters' power causing their ship to fall back behind the enemy's. He suddenly increased power causing everyone to jolt unpleasantly. Tucker looked out the window wondering what they were up to, but worry outweighed his curiosity. He turned to stare at Locus who did his best to dodge the enemy shots. "Can't we do anything to help them at all?!"

"They are on their own," Locus replied narrowly dodging a missile. He could feel his own heart racing on the edge. His blood was boiling with both fear and excitement at the danger. Grif stabilized the ship behind the enemy and gave a clean line of shot to the turret operators. "Take them out!"

All of them opened fire and manage to sink one enemy ship each. Though that was only three out of the nine, Grif smashed the panel to his left in frustration. "Dammit, what will it take to keep you assholes down?!"

* * *

"Grif," Simmons called out visibly shaking in his seat.

"What?!"

"Dodge…"

"Dodge?" Grif pondered staring at the rear camera display. The six ships were now preparing to fire missiles. "Shit…"

If one were to see the missiles from afar, they could easily mistake it for an elaborate display of fireworks. Grif kept on steering out of the missile's pathway. But their luck eventually ran out as three missiles came with deadly precision. The first two hit two thrusters causing the ship to lose its ability to fly properly. Tucker leaned hard against the rear window studying the damage, his heart nearly stopped at seeing the falling wreckage from the ship.

"I hate to say this but…," Grif began losing control of the ship's stability. Sarge in an annoyed tone grunted before the orange soldier could finish. "Don't even say it."

Just then the third missile hit atop the ship's roof! It tore a section of the roof away. Washington still woozy looked at the others, and with whatever strength he could muster he activated his oxygen module. "Activate your oxygen supply!"

"Oh, pretty stars," said Caboose in his ever so disconnected reality. Grif punched the panel in front of him shouting. "Fuck the stars! We are going to fucking die!"

"Everyone, hold on tight!" Doc shouted as he studied his legs shake uncontrollably. _Oh god I think I'm going to piss myself…_

* * *

The ship quickly began to lose altitude, being dragged back down to their homes. Tucker saw the falling ship and held his hand out in desperation. "We have to turn back!"

Locus quietly continued to steer out into space. Tucker rushed over to Locus. "Didn't you hear me?!"

"We turn back now, and we will practically be giving the swords to them."

Tucker gritted his teeth as he punched the ship's hull. "That doesn't matter, what matters is that they are okay."

"No."

"This isn't about the objective! It's about making sure my friends are fine. If they want the sword then let them have it! We will just find another way to stop them."

"No we won't."

Tucker could hear static over the radio. He looked towards the rear window and rushed over to see the second escape ship nearly out of sight now. Out of all the static communication, the only words he could make out were 'stay safe' and 'good luck'. _This isn't right_.

"Locus," Tucker began staring at the point he lost sight of his family. "Turn this fucking ship around now!"

There was no response. Tucker groaned in anger and turned around only to last see a fist before complete darkness. Locus stared at the fallen soldier who was now motionless, and he then looked out the rear window. The enemy ships had given up pursuit.

 _All according to plan_ , he pondered picking up Tucker's sword and storing it safely in one of the safes. He tied Tucker up and kept him safe in the back. Locus sat down finally finding pleasure in this silence. He inputted coordinates into the ship's auto pilot and sat back observing the stars. _I know I'm doing the right thing…_


	21. New Mission

**Chapter 20: New Mission**

As Locus' ship exited a warp hole, a red light lit up on a button. Along with the light came an annoying beeping noise that insensately pierced the ears of those around it. An armored soldier reached out to shut the alarm. He looked out the ship's window to see a huge space station in sight and took manual control again. Locus was home.

The onboard radio crackled with static sending unpleasant shivers through Locus. He pressed the receive call to hear one of the dock operators talking. "Identify your ship. You have ten seconds to comply, else turn around. If you don't, we will be forced to open fire."

"Ship identification number is 2996FFGH8. Operator Name, Locus."

"Locus, the mercenary? I see that you are returning from your mission then."

"Correct."

"You will be received at dock 6A," the dock operator ended communication and Locus identified the exact dock on his screens. He steered the ship past the various debris surrounding the space station and over to the dock.

Large doors opened and Locus slowed down his approach until he was motionless. Two large clamps extended from the two walls to the ship's sides and attached safely. Locus shut down the unnecessary functions of the ship and sat back as they were then doused with a sterilizing compound to help clean the ship of any unwanted stowaways on the hull.

Once the procedure was completed, the clamps helped move the ship forward into the parking area. Upon reaching the end of the walls, a piston arm extended from the ceiling and attached to a special lock on top. The clamps disengaged, the ship began moving forward with the help of the piston arm. They were soon set down in a free area.

Outside of the ship was a team ready to pick up their targets as well as clean the ship from the inside. Locus walked towards the safe and retrieved the sword. He looked over at Tucker who was still out cold and tightly gripped the sword. _Yes, this is the right thing to do_.

The door opened and the teams outside curiously peered inside. Locus walked outside with the sword in his hand. "Objective completed."

He handed the sword to one of the station employees. The employee studied the alien sword, enamored by its beauty in its design. "What about its operator?"

"Inside and restrained to the rear of the ship."

"Fine work Locus," the employee noted safely putting the sword away. He motioned for a couple of other employees with him to retrieve Tucker. "We will bring him to the boss, go on ahead and debrief."

* * *

As the employees lifted Tucker's body and placed him into a restraint wheel chair. They locked his feet, thighs, wrists and forearms into place. Tucker started to stir awake, and his vision was blurry. He could still feel some pain accumulating in his nose from Locus' punch before. _What's going on?_ He wondered looking all around him.

Tucker and his escorts entered a small room. The door behind them shut and a cleansing liquid sprayed over them all. Once they were dried off, the group was on their way to the meeting area. The employee in charge swiped a key card, entered in a pass code and scanned their finger print to open the door. Once it was completely open, everyone followed the employee in front.

The room was dark with only a single spot light in the middle of the room. The employees walked into it and Tucker noticed that Locus was standing to the side. "Locus, what's going on?"

The mercenary remained silent as ever. Tucker tried to move in his chair but quickly learned of his situation. _The fuck?!_

"Locus, what is going on?!"

"There is someone who wants to meet you."

Suddenly a loud static noise echoed through the room. "Ow god, what the hell?"

"My apologies gentlemen, now everyone but Captain Tucker and Locus may leave."

Tucker looked up to notice some light reflecting off of what he could only make out to be a window. The voice that just spoke sounded weary, deep and heavy in tone, low pitch, gritty and very gravelly. _What is the deal with this dude?_ Tucker wondered only to again hear the static in the room.

"Captain Tucker, you may be wondering about your current predicament."

"No shit, it's not like anyone else would be thinking the same."

The man behind the voice was quiet for a few minutes. In the shadows behind the window, the man let a heavy sigh escape him. He tried to normalize his breathing and reached out with a metal hand to the microphone button. "All will become clear soon, let's talk."

* * *

 _Tucker…Tucker, Tucker! TUCKER!_ Carolina jolted her head upwards to find herself weakly slumped against the safety restraints of her chair. Her abdomen still ached, but less so now thanks to Doc's quick treatment. She looked all around to find the rest of the crew coming to. Inside the turret cockpits, the three operators shook their heads in disbelief, they had survived. Grif let out a painful sigh as every muscle in his body pained him when he tried to move. "Well, at least we all made it back down."

"Not all of us," Caboose replied in a low, but hearable voice. Everyone lowered their heads in defeat. They all undid the safety restraints on their chairs and tried to stand up. Their body was still shaken from the crash as many fell down. Washington looked all around him and cursed in his own head. _How could this happen? Everything seemed to be going so well and yet…_

Washington saw Carolina stumbling, and did his best to help her balance. He was in no shape to be standing either just like the rest thanks to his injured leg. Simmons, Lopez, Donut and Grif came out to where the others were, equally grateful for their survival, and confused at the next steps to take. "What now?"

"Assuming Locus was telling the truth," Washington started only to be interrupted by Simmons. "Yeah, that's a pretty big assumption to be making Wash."

"We don't have much of a choice. Like I was saying, assuming Locus was telling the truth, then Tucker should be safe for the time being."

"And what if he wasn't telling the truth?" Donut asked hoping to get some solid answers. But he was only met by silence. They all knew that they feared the worst for Tucker in this situation. Carolina smashed her fist into the ship's hull causing a dent in there. The echo of the noise alerted everyone to her. "Whether we trust Locus or not, I'm not leaving Tucker alone like that. I won't let go of him so easily."

They could feel a fire burning brightly in her heart, a fire called determination. They all looked around at one another, without words they could understand and nodded.

"Yeah, it just wouldn't be Blood Gulch without Tucker," Sarge commented as he stood up and walked towards Carolina. Wash smiled beneath his helmet, _if there is one thing I know you guys will always do, it's that you will stick together and pull through_. "Count me in to."

"Yeah! Let's go get him!" Caboose shouted in encouragement as he ran up to the others. Carolina looked all around as they all nodded towards her.

"Then we know what to do next," she looked up at the sky thinking, _wait for us Tucker. We won't abandon you, we are coming for you. We are family after all_.

* * *

 **A/N: That is it, it is done! Now I can move on to the next season of this story. Just a FYI this will be a trilogy. Originally I had plans for only two seasons, but after getting a few more ideas I think it can work as a trilogy.**

 **Thank you for sticking to the end with this one. I hope you look forward to the sequel in which more is explained about what happened. Also how dare Locus betray everyone?! More on this in the sequel.**

 **For the person that had left a review stating that they would like to see Sis back into the mix. First, sorry I didn't approve it, mainly because even I couldn't understand what most of it was saying. Second, regarding the Sis request, to that all I can say is please look forward to Season 15.**

 **Thank you all to those that stuck to the very end. I hope you were able to find enjoyment out of this story and look forward to the next entry in this trilogy.**


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